How to Free Your Dragon
by RiderWitchVampire7
Summary: Halfrida and Herryk Holtson have spent their lives avoiding violence and eagerly watching the dragon fighters, respectively. But this begins to change when Hiccup tries to tame a dragon in the ring. When they are kidnapped by and escape the Bashing Barbarians, can they find a way home to Berk? What about the strange yet familiar dragons they meet? Will there be a Berk to return to?
1. Chapter 1- Halfrida

**A/N: Hi! I'm back! As for my other story… honestly, I had the idea for the beginning, but I didn't really know where I was going with it. I'll try to finish it, because (almost) nothing bugs me more than an unfinished story that never gets updated again.**

 **But this story, I do definitely have an ending in mind, and I've already written the first seventeen chapters or so, and am in the process of editing as well. This story does not feature any of the main characters from Httyd, though they are mentioned once in a while. The title may or may not be a working title, as I don't like it much, but it might grow on me. This story is also canon-friendly, though it might clash a little with the TV series as I'm not too familiar with it. Finally, I am writing this story with a co-author and editor, my younger brother, Chimera21.**

 **All recognizable characters, places, ideas, etc are not mine, but I (or my brother) do own my OCs.**

"Wonder how he hid it all these years."

"I've never seen him take down the beasts myself, but from all I hear this will be a good and bloody fight!"

I rolled my eyes as I passed the two eager Viking men and sat down on one of the wooden benches around the arena next to my friends, Nora and Therese, before turning back to the sheepskin vest I was mending. I took a breath, enjoying the crisp and clear autumn air, currently untainted with fog or smoke from an attack.

My grey eyes scanned over the crowd that had gathered for the occasion. Despite being sixteen, the same age as most of the teens who had just completed-or were just about to complete- dragon training, I was not a fan of 'good and bloody fights'. I preferred to stay home, and my father, who had recognized I was decidedly non-violent by Viking standards, didn't require me to go. He needed me at home, anyway, after my mother had been killed in a dragon raid five years ago. My most prized possession was a necklace with a blue gemstone she had given me only a couple weeks before the fight and I had worn it ever since, though I had other things from her, mostly tools and things that kept the house running. A little over half the girls in each year usually did the same, choosing to learn to heal and keep the house instead of becoming shield-maidens.

Nora and Therese were these other young women nearest my age, and though we got along and I was closer to them than any of the other Viking teens, I spent most of my free time outside in the cool shade of the pine forest around our village, though refraining from hunting or fighting any animals I came across. The two girls spent most of their free time socializing, doing their hair, or giggling over and admiring the warriors-in-training, mainly Snotlout Jorgenson.

I glanced up at the noise of the clear laughter of my twelve-year-old brother, Herryk. His grey eyes, similar to mine, danced with amusement as he joked with his friends, gesturing and leaning against the metal bars around the kill ring, his brown hair, unlike my neatly braided blond, tousled in the wind. He wore a long-sleeved blue tunic with brown pants and a grey fur vest, which I had made, along with my own short-sleeved green tunic, blue leggings, and my leather and grey cloth skirt. I had done most of the sewing for my family since the dragon attack that had taken our mother.

Herryk, like most typical Viking boys his age, was eager to learn to fight dragons. He wasn't strong and burly like the others, though perhaps that would come once he hit his growth spurt. He was agile, and pretty good with his hands, which would hopefully keep him alive when he did start fighting.

I thought back to the most recent raid. Our house had nearly caught fire, but Herryk had scrambled up a ladder with a bucket of water and dumped it on the sparking head of the Hideous Zippleback. It was a trick he had learned from obsessively watching the recent dragon training lessons with his friends. He saw Hiccup as something of a hero, a smaller boy like him outsmarting the dragons instead of using pure brute force.

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III had surprised everyone, going from the village joke to top of his dragon fighting class, something most of the assembled Vikings were loudly blabbing about. He was the reason I was at the fight in the first place- he was the son of the chief, after all, and while Stoick the Vast was a good fighter and leader, he was known to have a bit of a temper on occasion. Plus this was a major rite of passage for any young Viking, and it was generally polite to show up. Not that Vikings were habitually polite, but that was beside the point.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when the six dragon-fighting recruits stopped in front of us, various shiny weapons glinting in the sunlight. I ducked my head, not particularly eager to get their attention. I wasn't afraid of them, exactly, just intimidated. Though they were the 'cool Vikings,' I didn't have any interest in joining their group, and had mostly ignored them for the majority of my childhood. I caught a glimpse of nearly identical looks of eagerness for the fight on their faces- except for Hiccup, who looked queasy but determined, and Astrid Hofferson, whose expression was stony, though she kept glancing at the chief's son.

"Do any of you ladies want to sit with us?" Snotlout asked, casually leaning on his axe. "I've been told I'm excellent at giving commentary."

Therese and Nora stifled girlish giggles. "Of course, we'd love to," Nora answered, batting her eyelashes. Astrid rolled her eyes in disgust.

"Halfrida? Want to come?" Fishlegs Ingerman asked.

I swallowed nervously. "Uh, n-no thanks, I have a good spot here," I replied, feeling rather timid under the force of the group's combined gazes. Plus any commentary of Snotlout's was guaranteed to be exaggerated and graphic.

"I'll come sit with you guys!" Herryk jumped in eagerly.

Snotlout and Tuffnut Thorston exchanged glances. "Uh… I just realized that we only have room for two extra people… maybe some other time…" Tuffnut replied in an excuse that was transparent as usual yet surprisingly tactful. Herryk visibly deflated and sat down next to me as Nora and Therese walked off with the other teens, while Hiccup and Astrid went towards the entrance of the arena. She was probably going to shout at one last time for daring to beat her last minute after all her hard training, I mused.

The arena suddenly went quiet as Hiccup entered, wearing nothing but his usual tunic, vest, pants, and a helmet. He picked up nothing but a dagger and a shield from the rack of weapons.

"I'm ready."

What whispers remained went silent as the Monstrous Nightmare cage was opened with an ominous cranking. The beast emerged in a blaze of fire, glaring at us evilly as it raced around the edges of the arena, spewing flames. I ducked behind another Viking, but the fire fortunately didn't come near me.

"This is awesome," Herryk proclaimed, a crazed grin on his face. I rolled my eyes again but smiled fondly before turning apprehensively back to the ring.

The Monstrous Nightmare had stopped flaming and had dropped from the chain ceiling of the enclosure to face its opponent directly. It advanced, and Hiccup stepped backwards just as quickly- dropping his dagger and shield and slowing as he held his hands in front of the dragon's snout.

The dragon seemed almost as confused as we were. Was he going to bring it down by touching it in a certain place, like he had supposedly done with the Deadly Nadder? It wasn't the showiest method, but if it worked, it worked. I personally agreed that it was best to get the fight done with as quickly as possible before limbs were lost.

The Nightmare growled menacingly, but Hiccup made soothing noises. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay."

Everyone leaned forward in confusion and anticipation. We hadn't seen this trick before. Lulling the dragon into a false sense of security? Most Vikings here, including me, were of the opinion that the dragon didn't care how harmless Hiccup appeared, and simply wanted to roast him and escape, possibly torching a few houses and stealing a few sheep along the way.

But it got even stranger when the teen took off his horned helmet and threw it to the ground. "I'm not one of them," he proclaimed with deadly finality.

Soft gasps rang through the arena. "What is he doing?"

"Stop the fight." Chief Stoick's voice, though at a low volume, rang out over the other whispers like thunder.

"No! I need you all to see this." Hiccup had his hands almost touching the dragon's nose. "They're not what we think they are. We don't have to kill them."

I was just as surprised as anyone by his words. Hiccup, underdog hero of the dragon arena, most popular teen in the village, opposed to killing dragons? But once I thought about it, I remembered that- according to Herryk, at least- Hiccup had never visibly injured any dragon, only somehow disabling them or getting them back into their cage. As I was fairly skinny, I got up and squeezed between two women to see better, but I only had an instant to clearly see the Nightmare, seemingly calm but wary.

"I said STOP THE FIGHT!" Chief Stoick's hammer rang against the bars of the arena, snapping the dragon out of its almost trance-like state before it began rampaging and breathing fire again.

I watched with dismay as Hiccup led the dragon on a chase around the ring, all strategy seemingly forgotten as Astrid- Astrid, the girl who only the day before had hated Hiccup's guts? Maybe she thought she had a chance to get her hard-earned glory if she killed the Nightmare now- forced her way into the ring to help, throwing a hammer at its head, and was joined by Stoick only a moment later. Stoick pulled Astrid out of the way before she could get hurt, but a fiery shot from the Nightmare blocked his son's escape.

The Monstrous Nightmare had Hiccup pinned with its claws, and I looked away as it prepared to kill him with its fiery breath.

Suddenly, I heard an all too familiar scream- the scream of the most feared dragon, even more notorious than the Nightmare, about to send a deadly blast of blue flame. There was a blinding flash of light, and then smoke and a gaping hole in the bars surrounding the arena was all that was visible. The smoke cleared a moment later in a flurry of flapping wings- the Nightmare was wrestling with a black mass half its size, and the black mass seemed to be winning.

It was a Night Fury.

Despite my dislike for bloody battles, my eyes were glued to the scene. The Night Fury had its back to Hiccup and from what I saw, it was _defending_ him from the Nightmare, and the Nightmare was backing off. My eyes flickered over the mysterious dragon, so unknown and so feared that the dragon manual had no illustration and no statistics, only advice to flee and pray it did not find you. It was as black as its name suggested, with batlike wings, four legs, a wide triangular head, large yellow-green eyes, and a finned tail… half a finned tail?

It was clearly not as it seemed at first glance. Half its tail was leather and iron, and on its back, almost on its neck, was a leather object that could only be one thing, but the idea was almost too ludicrous to consider.

Had Hiccup made a _saddle_ for the dragon? Only he or Gobber would have the resources and skills to make a saddle and _half of a dragon's tail,_ and Gobber doing it was an idea almost as crazy as the saddle itself.

My wild theory was partially confirmed as Hiccup stepped up to the Night Fury's head fearlessly and urged it to flee from the Vikings determined to get a piece of it. The dragon stayed, defending itself and somersaulting over Chief Stoick, as Hiccup pleaded with it to quit fighting. "Toothless, stop! No! NO!"

I held my breath as the Night Fury, about to deliver a fatal blast to the chief, held back its fire and looked at Hiccup with an odd, almost pleading expression.

"Get him!" someone yelled, and the dragon was tackled from all sides, then tied up and taken away.

"Don't hurt him… please, don't hurt him," Hiccup begged as it was put into a cage.

Stoick grabbed Hiccup and dragged him off, and the rest of remained in confusion.

"Halfrida, that was…" Herryk was speechless. "It wasn't… wearing a _saddle,_ was it?"

I shrugged. "That's what I saw. I doubt it was ever used."

"What dragon would allow a person on its back?" he agreed.

I nodded thoughtfully and grabbed the forgotten sheepskin vest as we got up and turned to walk back to our house. "Especially a Night Fury… but he would have to get close enough to get it on, and getting the dragon to hold still to put it on without being maimed might be even harder than getting on its back."

Herryk grinned. "Probably how he figured out how to get all those dragons without permanently injuring them… Hey, at least even you can agree it was interesting this year."

I bumped his shoulder as we continued walking.

The two of us entered our family's house- a sturdy wooden building with two downstairs rooms and an attic, where Herryk and I slept, and the house had lasted us seven months and counting, though there were a few minor incidents that had had to be repaired along the way. We went about our chores, cleaning up the earlier meal, sweeping, and feeding the sheep.

Our father came in a minute later. "Dad!" I called, waving in greeting from the sheep pen.

He smiled beneath his thick brown beard, but his blue eyes were grim. "Halfrida. I only have time to pack and say goodbye, we're going after the dragon nest again."

Icy dread sliced through my heart.

"Again?" Herryk asked, confused. "But you just got back."

"There's new information, apparently. I think Hiccup must have said something to Chief Stoick. We're taking the Night Fury with us, it seems that only a dragon can find the nest."

"We'll see you off," I promised, like I always did. It seemed to bring luck- so far, at least, our father had always returned.


	2. Chapter 2- Herryk

I followed Dad and Halfrida to the docks, my sister and I stopping partway down while our father continued. The two of us sat on the wooden planks as the Viking fleet, the pride of Berk, sailed towards the horizon. I was a little more worried this time than usual- if Hiccup thought they could find the dragon nest, then maybe they could. This could be the end, for good or for bad.

We got up and started to walk back once the ships had vanished. I looked around at the usually bustling area. It was empty, save for two small figures with their backs to us on one of the lower platforms.

"Is that… Hiccup and Astrid?" I wondered, squinting. Halfrida shrugged.

"I thought Hiccup would have gone with them… But maybe he and the Chief got into a fight or something."

"Yeah… We could ask them!" I decided, and I stepped forward eagerly, but my sister grabbed my arm.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. They barely know us, and if they took the Night Fury without Hiccup, he's probably upset about that. We should leave them be."

"You're their age, though," I protested.

Halfrida snorted. "I'm not exactly friends with them. I'm not…" She trailed off and shook her head. "They're just a little too excited about death and dismemberment for my tastes."

"And me?" I asked. She knuckled my head.

"You're my little brother. I have to deal with it."

I laughed and we continued up the path and back to the house. We had lunch, taking some bread my sister had made the day before and some fish that Dad had caught a bit ago, and I noted that we were running low on fish- a bunch had been stolen in the raid.

I thought about that as we ate in silence. If this was the end, either dragons would never bother us again- or Dad wouldn't return this time. Or it would be yet another fruitless voyage, with more lost ships but no new leads.

I glanced over at Halfrida. She seemed nervous too, but we were nervous whenever there was a trip to find the nest. I couldn't tell if she thought they might find it this time or if it was just like any other time.

After we finished eating, I stood up. "I think I'm going to go fishing… want to come?"

My sister considered for a moment, then nodded. "Sure. We can put some in the ice box for when Dad gets back."

"Or maybe I can go hunting and catch something later," I mused. The forest was probably full of animals preparing to hibernate for winter. But for now we were going fishing.

The two of us gathered up the gear we needed and headed towards the docks. On the way, I stopped at the dragon arena when I saw Hiccup and his friends were there. Why was Hiccup still here? He was really good at taking down dragons, so if he wasn't on the voyage, he was probably in trouble with his dad. Not enough to be banished or outcast, obviously, unless he was defying his father by staying in the village. There wasn't much the chief could do if he was leagues away at sea.

Halfrida rolled her eyes. "Come on. We can't waste time watching them if we want to catch anything."

"No- I think they're going to do something… maybe something as weird as this morning," I said. Hiccup was staring contemplatively at the closed Monstrous Nightmare cage, his friends standing in a line twenty feet behind him.

"If you're planning on getting eaten, I'd definitely go with the Gronckle," Fishlegs said. Hiccup turned to face them and Tuffnut stepped forward.

"You were wise to seek help from the world's most deadly weapon… That's me." He was shoved to the side by Snotlout.

"I love this plan!"

He was shoved aside by Tuffnut's twin sister, Ruffnut. "You're crazy… I like that…"

Astrid pulled her away by one of the horns on her helmet. "So? What _is_ the plan?"

I crossed my arms and rested leaned against the bars, sticking my head through as Hiccup got a smile on his face. "We're going to ride these dragons to give our fellow Vikings some aerial support."

Various noises of surprise and disbelief were made, but quickly quieted. These people seemed to really trust him- or at least his experience with dragons. Either that or they were eager to hear more, like I was. Surprisingly, the most reasonable question came from Tuffnut, who was usually a few arrows short of a quiver, but he could fight when he wasn't arguing with Ruffnut.

"Wait, so how would you make the dragons fight other dragons? Won't they just eat us instead?"

Hiccup shook his head. "No, we're not fighting other dragons, not unless we have to. See, the dragons aren't the killing machines we see them as. They're only stealing our food because they have to take it back to the island to feed their queen, like a giant nest of bees. If they don't bring food, they get eaten instead."

"We're not trying to get rid of the dragons, we're getting rid of the queen and helping our families," Astrid summed up.

"Did Hiccup go to the island? Did Astrid go with him?" Halfrida had stayed, and now seemed to be showing a reluctant interest in what was going on.

I shrugged as I looked through the bars. "I don't know," I said quietly so as not to disturb the ones in the ring.

Hiccup told the others to get rid of their weapons, and they put them off to the side, still a little wary except for Astrid. We watched as Hiccup opened the first cage- the cage of the Deadly Nadder. The Vikings stood back, and with no weapons, the Nadder only eyed them in return. Hiccup patted and scratched its scales for a moment before releasing the Hideous Zippleback, calming it in a similar manner, then did the same with the Gronckle.

Finally, the cage of the Monstrous Nightmare was opened. Hiccup led the massive dragon forward, its eyes fixed on him as he back up towards Snotlout, his hand over its snout.

Snotlout nervously bent down to pick up a forgotten weapon, but Astrid slapped his hand away. Hiccup took his hand and started moving it towards the Nightmare.

"Wait, what are you-"

"Relax. It's okay. It's okay." Hiccup placed Snotlout's hand gently on the nose of the dragon. There was a tense moment, but it did not attack, and seemed to hum in pleasure.

"Whoa," I breathed in fascination. The lizard-like dragon, which had flaming skin, daggers for teeth, and sickles for claws was allowing a Viking to touch it, unharmed.

Snotlout laughed in nervous exhilaration, then frowned when Hiccup walked away. "Where are you going?"

"You're going to need something to hold on," Hiccup said, grabbing a coil of rope. My mind wandered for a moment to ponder the coolness of riding and flying on a great Monstrous Nightmare. Awesome would be an understatement.

Astrid walked up to the Deadly Nadder, and looked it in the eye, then began talking to it in a soft, reassuring voice, scratching it behind its spines. It let out a curious but seemingly pleased noise.

Hiccup led the Zippleback to the twins, who each tried to reason with one of the heads. Fortunately, neither was roasted, but one was sprayed with green gas for a moment before all was seemingly forgiven.

Finally, Fishlegs stepped up to the Gronckle on his own. It eyed him but made no move to avoid him, as it had seen what the other Vikings had done with its fellow dragons.

Hiccup was off to the side, cutting lengths of rope, but he returned and went first to the Monstrous Nightmare, tying the rope around its neck near its head.

"Now come around here to its neck slowly," Hiccup instructed Snotlout. "Get it used to the idea of you being over there, and when you feel ready, climb on."

Hiccup stood back as Snotlout cautiously sat on the neck of the dragon. Snotlout yelped and grabbed one of its horns as the dragon jerked its head up in surprise. He held on as the Nightmare whipped its head around, trying to see the Viking, but it soon calmed down and allowed Snotlout to stay for at least the time being.

Astrid went next. As the Nadder's neck wasn't the best place to sit due to the head spines, she tied a rope around its belly and got on its back, holding on to the rope. It turned its head to look at her for a few seconds before facing forward again.

Each dragon grew progressively warmer to each new idea as it saw its friends unharmed. It became a little tense when Hiccup went back to the corner where the weapons had been left. He grabbed Astrid's axe first, approaching the Nadder slowly, axe held off the the side in a non-offensive position. He handed it to Astrid, who gently laid it across the dragon's back. The dragon turned its head to look at it, then sniff it cautiously. It finally deemed the axe acceptable and turned forward again as Astrid began scratching its scales.

A few minutes later, all Vikings were on dragonback and armed. Hiccup opened the gate of the arena to let them out and climbed up behind Astrid.

"Okay… Uh… hold on with your legs and kinda lean to turn, I guess, but let them do the flying… I tell you anything I've forgotten in the air…"

"Wait, you've really done this before? You're not making this up as you go, right?" Snotlout checked nervously.

"Yeah, I do this all the time… Toothless is a little different though…"

As he spoke the words, he seemed to slump a little, a worried expression on his face.

The dragon nerd of the group suddenly remembered what kind of dragon Hiccup was referring to. "How fast does a Night Fury go? How far can it shoot its-"

"Not now, Fishlegs," Astrid snapped, looking even more fierce than usual atop her Nadder. Hiccup gave her a grateful smile.

"I'll tell you all about him… later. We need to head out."

"This is insane," Halfrida muttered. I jumped a little, I had almost forgotten my sister was here too. "What if they fall off over the ocean? If the dragons decide they don't want them on their backs anymore?"

"I would still do it… come on, we might be able to catch up to them!" I said excitedly.

"Whoa!" Halfrida grabbed my arm again as I jumped up. "First of all, you're only twelve, barely able to life a battleaxe. You'd be killed in less than a minute once you reach the island. Second, there's no dragons left, unless you want to ride the Terrible Terror."

I was forced to admit my sister had a point and I sat back down. We watched as the four dragons stepped out of the arena and lifted their heads up, viewing the sky unobstructed for the first time in possibly months.

"Go!" Hiccup yelled, and the dragons lifted their wings and flapped downward as they leaped off the cliff. They circled clumsily a few times, getting used to flying again and with added weight on their backs and necks, before flying towards what could only be the location of the dragon nest.

"Well…" I said as my heroes flew off into the distance. "I didn't see anyone fall, so unless they're fed to that queen…"

Halfrida shook her head in amazement. "You know… Hiccup might be right. That Night Fury certainly trusted him enough to let him put the saddle and prosthetic tail on. He's flown on it before, and if that's how he got to the nest… it obviously brought him back alive."

"It was showing him, not offering him as food," I agreed.

"Maybe… maybe the dragons _want_ to be freed from that 'queen.' We wouldn't have to hurt them anymore if they don't have to steal from us." My sister's eyes were shining with excitement. "We wouldn't have to be at war anymore!"

Despite having a more typically Viking-like attitude towards war than my sister, I did have to agree with her- it would be nice to not worry about friends dying or rebuilding the house again. "C'mon, they'll probably be back soon. We need to be fishing." And then I could tell my friends what I had seen- They were going to be so jealous!

We walked down the ramps to the sea, and pulled out our family's small fishing vessel. We piled our nets in, and a couple weapons in case of dragon attack, but I doubted that would happen now of all times. I lowered the sails and Halfrida kept a steady hand on the steering oar.

Once we had gotten out far enough, we dropped our nets, and put out hooks on lines as well.

We had been sitting in the boat for a couple of hours when we spotted a ship coming towards us.

"They're back already?" I wondered in confusion.

Halfrida frowned. "Maybe the nest was closer than we thought, maybe the battle was already over before Hiccup left with the dragons."

"But there's only one boat… maybe it's a trader. Or a messenger." I suggested.

Halfrida nodded and we waited as the boat approached. It came closer and closer, rowing towards us, and finally it was near enough that we could make out an imposing figure standing at the front, with a horned helmet, thick black beard, and a shiny battleaxe at his waist.

I had opened my mouth to ask who he was when two more Vikings, similar in appearance but slightly less massive and with different colored beards jumped into our boat. I yelped and stumbled as the boat rocked, but one of the men clapped a hand over my mouth. He kicked the back of my knees and I fell. He whacked my head with his hammer and the world went dark.


	3. Chapter 3- Halfrida

I woke up again slowly and tried to sit up, only to find that it was difficult as my hands had been tied behind my back and one of my feet was chained to my brother's.

"Wh-where are we?" I asked, heart pounding. The big black-bearded Viking stepped in front of me.

"You have been captured by the Bashing Barbarians of the Savage Islands." He laughed a menacing laugh. "Behave, and you will make a very nice slave." He walked away back towards to front of the boat.

"He's a poet and doesn't know it," Herryk mumbled, but I could tell he was afraid too. We had all heard what happened to Hairy Hooligans who were taken captive by the Bashing Barbarians. They had captured dragons and kept them in cages like we did on Berk. If you behaved, like the black-bearded Viking had said, you became a slave, serving the Barbarians for the rest of your most likely short life. If you misbehaved, rebelled, were caught escaping, or if the Barbarians got bored, you were tossed into a pit with a weapon and a shield to fight a dragon. If you killed the dragon, they would release another, but that rarely happened, as the dragons were kept hungry and very angry by their keepers. Only two Hooligans had ever escaped to tell those tales, but they were hard to forget.

I looked around- they hadn't bothered to gag us, we were on the open ocean and nobody would hear us if we yelled for were seated at the front of the longship, along with fifteen other Vikings of various ages and from various tribes. I recognized two ten-year-olds from Berk, but that was it. The rowers sat on benches up and down the sides of the ship, but weren't currently rowing as the wind was in their favor. Now that the sail was unfurled, I could clearly see the sign of the Chief of the Savage Vikings.

I twisted and managed to get a better look at our fellow captives. One of them, a youth about my age or older, probably from another Viking tribe, loudly complained and threatened his captors. He received a slap across his face for his efforts.

"Don't talk or complain," I muttered. "Act submissive for now." Herryk swallowed nervously but nodded in agreement.

We continued heading north for a the rest of the day. When the sun began to set, the black-bearded Viking, who was probably Chief Thorgrim the Merciless, eyed us. "You two. Stand up."

I did so quickly, or at least as quickly as I could with my leg chained to my brother's and my arms tied behind my back.

"Give supper to the rowers." He sliced through the bonds tying our hands behind our backs. "Try anything and I'll slit you throats."

I gulped and we nodded quickly before following him as best we could to the back of the ship, where there were a few spare wooden shields, a cask of water, and crates of food. It wasn't quite as difficult as a three-legged race, because we did have half a foot of chain between us, and we managed to bring food to all the crewmembers before our hands were tied again and we sat down at the front with the other captives. After a while, we fell into an uneasy sleep.

The next day was much the same as we continued northward. Apparently we had done something right, because we had been 'asked' to bring breakfast around as well. They allowed us some food this time, along with the other slaves, but the portions were very small and were finished quickly.

We sat again with the other captives until midday, when we gave the crewmembers lunch. After that, the wind died down, and the rowers started rowing again.

In the middle of the afternoon, an island came into sight, but the ship made no move to turn towards it, still continuing northwards.

"Probably the southernmost of the islands," Herryk muttered, probably thinking back to the maps we had seen. "It's uninhabited." I quickly shushed him as Thorgrim came back towards us.

"You. Get water for the rowers," the Chief growled at us. He untied the bonds around our wrists and we stood up and walked to the back of the ship. We filled up a jug and started working our way down the rows. We ran out of water partway through, and went back to the stern to refill a few times.

I tripped over the chain tying my ankle to my brother's, and splashed some water on the arm of one of the rowers. My heart thudded and I gasped as he grabbed my arm and jerked me toward him.

"Watch your step, girl," he snarled, his beady black eyes glinting. Herryk stepped forward, a furious look on his face, but I held out my other arm to stop him and stuttered an apology.

The rower released my arm and I stumbled away, tugging Herryk with me, but my brother couldn't help giving a last glare to the Barbarian, which fortunately went unnoticed.

"Be _careful,_ " I hissed. "If they don't like you, you'll be one of the first to be fed to dragons."

"I can't control what they like or dislike," he replied, scowling.

"Yes, but if you are unnoticed in the first place, he'll never have a reason to dislike you."

Herryk sighed in annoyance, but I could see the frustration and fear in his eyes. We continued to move down the rows, distributing water.

"Dragon pack!" A voice from the front of the ship rang out in warning. The chief went forward to the front of the ship to assess their position.

"Row faster," he commanded. "We will cross paths with them but we can get through the worst of it if we speed up. Ready your weapons and shields."

I squinted up at the sky. I could make out the silhouettes of a small flock of Monstrous Nightmares and Deadly Nadders about to fly in front of the ship.

"Fire!" Thorgrim ordered after a minute of tense silence. Archers shot arrows at the dragons, nearly piercing the wings of a couple of them. The dragons turned toward the ship and a few of the Nightmares burst into flame in anger and indignation.

A Nadder fired the first shot at the ship, the blaze colliding with the deck near the front. The nearby crewmates ducked under shields while others dipped buckets into the ocean to put out the fire.

A Monstrous Nightmare let out a roar of fury as one of its wings was pierced by arrows and it landed on the prow of the ship. A few of the rowers stood up to help battle it as it shot a rippling pennant of flame down the length of the ship.

I ducked with everyone else as the fire went over our heads. Suddenly I got an idea- a crazy, all-or-nothing Viking idea.

I dragged Herryk with me to drop the empty water jug by the barrel, and hissed into his ear.

"Wait for my signal. When the Nightmare or another dragon fires from the starboard side, we jump over the port railing here at the stern. Chained foot first."

"But we'll drown with this chain on our feet!" We winced as a Nadder let out a piercing scream, but I didn't look back to see if it had been hit or not.

"Before we jump, we each grab a wooden shield. They'll assume the shields fell off, we can hide under them if we're shot at, and use them to float later," I whispered as quickly as I dared. Herryk nodded resolutely.

"Wait for it… Now!" I hissed as the Nightmare drew breath to let loose another wave of fire. We each grabbed a shield, stuck our chained legs over the side of the boat, and swung our free legs over in unison as the Savage Island Vikings hid from the fiery onslaught under their shields. We landed with a splash, but the sound was covered by the roaring of the flames.

"Stay under the shield as long as you can, and take breaths when you can't," I said before grabbing the handle of my shield, taking a breath, and going under. The chain around my ankle pulled me down, but I kept a tight grip on the shield strap and didn't sink any further. After about a minute, I came back up for air to see the ship rowing furiously away, but it was not yet far enough that we wouldn't be spotted if someone looked our direction.

I held my breath five more times before the ship was a safe distance away. I tapped Herryk and he came up.

"I-is it s-s-safe?" he asked, teeth chattering.

I nodded, also shivering. "Take your shoes off, but tie them to the shields, we might want them when we get to the island."

"I-Island?"

"You thought we were going to jump out without anywhere to go afterwards?"

I had never before seen a Viking manage to shiver and look sheepish at the same time.

I pulled the shoe off my free foot, then did the same with the chained foot. Unfortunately, the manacles didn't slip off once our shoes were off.

I climbed up on one of the shields to look around. The Blahg Viking ship had only gotten further away, a few dragons still attacking, but they probably wouldn't for much longer.

I turned to the island. "Let's go," I said, sliding back into the water, and we started kicking and paddling.

The first few minutes were tricky as we figured out how to swim with our feet chained together, but we soon got into a rhythm. We both could swim fine, and had some experience paddling through cold water- there was an annual almost-freezing-to-death swimming competition on Berk, when the weather just started to warm up again after winter. I had participated once, but my brother had every year since he was eight.

I kept my eyes fixed on the island, but it didn't seem to be getting any closer. Herryk and I started breathing harder and shivering despite the exercise.

Still, we persisted. After a prayer to the gods and what seemed like an eternity but was probably only an hour or so, the island loomed over us and my foot hit the sandy, rocky bottom. Herryk and I half-walked, half stumbled onto the beach and collapsed.

"We… did it…" he said, panting. I only nodded in agreement.


	4. Chapter 4- Herryk

After a couple of minutes, I lifted up my head and looked around. I had gotten a pretty good look at the island as we swam towards it. All in all, it was similar to Berk, but probably smaller, with one small beach we had been able to see, which was also the one we were now collapsed on, and a small, snow-capped mountain in the center. At the moment, however, all I could see was a evergreen forest and the grey pebbles covering the beach.

I poked Halfrida. "Fire," I muttered.

She lifted her head up. "Where?"

I poked her again. "I meant we have to build one before our clothes freeze on us."

She nodded and we got to our feet before half walking, half hopping towards the forest to gather wood. We found a rock with flint and a small clearing, and cleared a ring and set up the tinder and kindling before striking the flint rock against the metal chain. We piled on some bigger logs, and fifteen minutes later had a roaring fire.

We spent a few minutes in silence warming up before Halfrida spoke. "Do you think we can soften the chain enough to break it?"

We took a few flaming sticks and pressed them to a link in the middle. After a few minutes, we grabbed our halves of the chain and started pulling, but it didn't make much of a difference.

"Let's try heating up some rocks, they can get hotter than the sticks without catching fire," I suggested. We put a couple rocks in the fire, then removed them with a few branches and pressed them against the link of the chain. After about half an hour of reheating and stretching, the chain link was thin enough that it snapped and we were separated.

"Thank goodness, I didn't really want to be stuck with you until we meet a blacksmith," Halfrida joked tiredly. I nodded in agreement and we laid down beside the fire, quickly falling asleep.

The next morning, we were both hungry. Water was easy enough to get, as there were small patches of snow here and there, because we were further north than Berk and winter was close, but we needed some way to catch food.

I looked around, taking in our wild forested surroundings, peering through the trees to see the empty ocean, and suddenly felt very small and alone. I took a few deep breaths and shook myself. This was just a camping trip. I had done this before. A very long camping trip with no adults or supplies… No. We were Vikings. We could do this. We could find a way out of here.

We wandered away from our campsite through the trees, making sure to mark our path so we could get back. After about an hour of hiking, I noticed a vine growing up a tree, and I brightened as I had an idea.

"Frida, look at this," I called. My sister came over and saw the vine.

"Very nice plant. Is it edible?"

I shook my head. "No. We can cut it down, you can braid it and make rope, then make it into snares to catch food."

Halfrida looked pleased at the idea, and we started pulling it down, but the task made our hands a little sore.

"We need to make knives or something," I muttered, and she nodded.

We took the vines to the campsite and Halfrida started stripping off the leaves and braiding them while I looked around our campsite for more flint rocks. I found some after a few minutes, and found more a few minutes later. I took them back to the campsite and started chipping away to make them sharper as Halfrida started tying the ropes into snares.

By the time we had found food for bait in the traps, set the traps, and finished making one knife, the sun was going down. We piled more wood on the fire and went to sleep.

The next morning, we went to check the traps, and one of them did have a rabbit caught in them. Halfrida looked away as I killed it and we took it back to the campsite, but she did help skin it and cook it.

"Hey, now we have a nice rabbit skin," I noted. "Need any?"

"Not at the moment," my sister replied, but she eyed it thoughtfully.

The next few days passed much the same. We usually caught a rabbit or two or some other small animal in the snares, but sometimes we would catch nothing.

We were sitting in a clearing at the bottom of a cliff face, using some thin braided vines to sew a few rabbit skins into caps to keep our heads and ears warm, when I had an idea.

"I saw some deer tracks and droppings yesterday, do you think I could make a bow to get some of them? We can use some if the smaller pieces of flint as arrowheads, and we could get feathers from the next time we catch a bird in one of the snares."

Halfrida considered, a thoughtful look on her face. "It would be nice if we could have some deer… and we could do so much with a deerskin…"

"Great, I'll look for some good wood later."

We worked in silence for a few minutes before I began to feel uneasy. I looked around, peering through the trees, but saw nothing.

"You alright?" Halfrida asked.

"Do you feel like we're being watched?" I replied. Halfrida frowned and looked around, and I looked up to the top of the cliff behind me. I thought I saw a flash of blue, but as the sky was clear above the cliff, I wasn't sure.

I dismissed it as paranoia after being safe for several days in a row- sure, we spent most of the day trying to survive, but there had been no attacks by dragons or unfriendly Vikings.

We returned to the campsite before dark and ate dinner before going to sleep.

The next morning, I went looking for good wood to make a bow while my sister plucked the feathers off of and cooked a bird that had been caught in the snares. I returned after about an hour with several pieces, because though I had seen bows made, I had never personally made one and I doubted I could make a very good one on my first try with minimal tools.

The first attempt, with vines for a string and one of the thicker branches, didn't bend very far and shot the arrow only a couple of feet. The second, with hide from one of the rabbits as string and one of the thinner pieces of wood, shot the arrow a little further but snapped when I tried to shoot it again.

The fifth bow, which I finished the next day, Halfrida and I agreed might work. We spent the rest of the day looking for deer tracks and following them. We camped in a small clearing, then kept going the next morning.

We caught up to the herd around noon, spotting them grazing in a clearing.

I examined the small group of animals under the cover of the trees. "How about that one?" I suggested, pointing to a deer that already had an injured leg.

Halfrida nodded but looked away as I nocked the arrow and raised the bow, but she suddenly grabbed my arm as I drew the arrow back.

"Day Fury," she hissed in alarm.

"I think you mean 'Night Fury,' I muttered, only half paying attention as I aimed the arrow, focusing on the clueless deer.

"No, Day Fury!"

Suddenly, a blue blur descended upon the herd of deer, killing one instantly as the others scattered. In the clearing, only fifty paces away, was a dragon nearly identical to Hiccup's Night Fury, only it was the color of a blue sky at midday.

"Day Fury," I agreed in surprise. There was suddenly another dragon, which swooped down and killed its own deer, its frost-blue scales shimmering beneath icy colored flames dancing along its back and wings.

"And that would be a Monstrous Daymare, I suppose," I mumbled. The dragon was really identical to other Monstrous Nightmares I had seen, if a little smaller and younger-looking than normal, except for its coloring and strange blue fire on its skin.

"Hey, Herryk… I have another crazy idea," Halfrida said, sounding almost mesmerized though she might have just been queasy from witnessing the bloody kills the dragons had made. "We are going to get back home to Berk. We're going on dragonback."

The wind suddenly shifted, and the two dragons snapped their heads up as they smelled us. They looked at us with a wary and sort of hostile stare, before leaping into the air and flying off, their deer clutched in their talons.

"Umm… Okay. Sure, good idea. But first let's go get the deer." Luckily for us, the deer with the injured leg had stumbled when it tried to flee and had broken its leg even more, so I raised the bow up again and shot. It was probably a good thing- now that I had seen how fast the deer could run, I was less sure I could fire a killing shot with this bow without it running away.

But as we dragged the deer back to the campsite, my mind drifted to the image of soaring the skies riding a flaming blue dragon…

 **A/N: And so it begins… I'm also working on drawing a cover for this story, so hopefully that'll be up before too much longer… depends how long 'too much longer' is…**


	5. Chapter 5- Halfrida

We spent most of the next day working with the deer- cutting out the good meat, skinning it so we had as much hide as could be salvaged, and trying to preserve them both, by smoking them and rubbing some of the fat into the hide. It wasn't exactly good quality leather, but it would work for some things for hopefully a month or so before falling apart.

I had experience preparing meat for meals, but Herryk knew more about preserving skins as he had been out and about in the village more than I had, so the next morning he continued doing that while I went out to check the snares.

I first went to the nearest snare and found a rabbit struggling in it. I grimaced but quickly slit its throat, then reset the snare, scattering new bait.

I hiked to the next snare, and found another rabbit, and repeated the process. A moment after I had killed the rabbit, a flash of sky blue was in front of me. I froze, eyes wide, as I was suddenly face-to-face with the Day Fury. It looked just as surprised as I was, but wary and a little afraid.

If I was going to get the dragon to trust me enough to carry me back to Berk, I might as well start now. I realized I was still clutching the dagger I had used to dispatch the rabbit, and I carefully tossed it aside.

The dragon looked confused, cocking its head and glancing at the dagger, then back at me.

I had never really confronted a dragon myself, except during attacks when I couldn't avoid it. I knelt and looked into its soft golden eyes, closer to hazel than yellow, and held up one one of the rabbits we had just caught. The dragon started walking over very cautiously. My hand started trembling, and the Day Fury darted forward, snatched the rabbit, then flew off.

I let out a shaky breath and sat back as I watched the dragon fly off through the trees, quickly disappearing against the blue sky. I stood up with my remaining rabbit, picked up my dagger from where I had tossed it, and continued to the third and final snare, finding it empty but broken. I retied the vine together, scattered more bait, and returned to the campsite.

"Hey, Frida. Any luck?" my brother said by way of greeting, looking up from the deer leather he was working with.

I wrinkled my nose at the smell before answering. "Two rabbits. I have one of them."

Herryk frowned. "Did one of them run away?"

I shook my head. "No, the Day Fury showed up, and I gave it the rabbit as a peace offering. Truce. Gesture of friendship. Whichever."

I winced a little as I crossed my legs and sat down on the log next to him..

"You alright?" Herryk asked.

I nodded. "I'll be fine as soon as I can get this darn chain off… It's started to chafe on my ankle, I've got blisters and sores."

The young Viking nodded sympathetically. "Me too… here, see?"

"No, I don't want to _see_ it!" I cried in disgust as I looked away.

Herryk snickered but lowered his pants leg and gave some more useful advice. "Try finding a patch of snow and icing it. It helps it feel better for a bit."

I nodded gratefully and walked off to do so, limping every once in awhile, but it wasn't too bad. I found a patch of snow relatively quickly, and scooped up some and rubbed it over my ankle. It went cold after a while, and so did the metal, which made it feel soothing even as it rubbed against my skin. I glanced up at the clouds- there was only an occasional one right now, but I knew winter would be coming soon. I hoped we could be sufficiently warm when it did come, or have returned to Berk by then.

I walked back to the campfire, smiled to my brother in thanks, and sat down and began cooking the other rabbit. While it cooked, I took some of the deer leather and used my dagger to cut off a portion to make into a bag. We were out of thin braided vines, so I went out again to gather more. I had to hike further this time, to find a new patch of vines, as the first one had been stripped bare. When I did find it, I pulled them off and bundled them under my arm. This would be a nice time to have a bag, I reflected, but that was why I needed the vines in the first place. Our lack of the most simple tools and materials was frustrating- things that any Viking should have lying around, such as baskets, bags, hammers, daggers, or bowls, we had to make ourselves, without any of the aforementioned tools to aid us in the process. Well, we did have the two shields, and the clothes on our back at least. I tried to think optimistically- it could be much worse. And we did have a way to get back to Berk, if we could survive long enough to do so, without dying of cold, starvation, or dragon fire.

I returned to the campfire, we ate dinner, and curled up in our clothes and rabbit fur caps by the fire.

I finished the deerskin bag the next morning, and put the rest of the leather and smoked deer meat in the bag, then laid the remaining vines out on a rock to dry out a little before I braided them into rope or thick thread. I glanced over at Herryk- he was still asleep. I smiled fondly before going out to check the traps, though it was technically his turn, so I scribbled a note on a convenient rock using a stick of charcoal from the fire.

The traps were, unfortunately, all empty, so we ate some of our smoked venison and spent the day exploring near our campsite, carving more chunks of flint, and finding more vines and firewood.

The next day, Herryk checked the traps, and again came back empty.

"Why don't we try and catch some deer again?" Herryk suggested, picking up the bow.

I shrugged. "I guess we could… but we don't know where any fresh tracks are."

"We'll check by the meadow they were in last time. Maybe they'll be there again, or maybe we'll find tracks there."

I didn't have any better ideas, so I stood up and followed him towards the meadow. We hiked for an hour or so before reaching it, as we didn't have to take such a roundabout path this time following deer tracks.

When we got closer to the meadow, we slowed down and walked quietly, but this was soon proved pointless as the meadow was devoid of deer.

We paced around the edge, and after a while found tracks that looked fairly fresh. They soon went onto a worn-looking game trail, and we followed it to the end of the trees, where it opened to the banks of a glass-still lake.

The lake was less still a moment later when the Monstrous Daymare suddenly burst out and onto the bank, mouth full of flopping fish. I quickly backed up, throwing a hand out in front of Herryk, causing him to back up too.

The Day Fury burst from the water a moment later, also with a couple of fish in its mouth. It dropped them on the shore, eating one and tossing the other to the Daymare, which snapped it out of the air before jumping up and winging its way to the middle of the lake where it hovered and let a jet of cold air out of its mouth. I couldn't tell exactly that it was a jet of cold air, but I saw the result- the water beneath it turned to ice, solidifying and spreading, until a good-sized floating icy platform was made. The Day Fury flew over and dove into the water, grabbing a larger fish, which it dropped on the platform before climbing up and eating it. The Daymare did the same with a bunch of smaller fish.

I watched, fascinated, as I had never seen what dragons did in the time they weren't raiding Vikings or fighting. The Day Fury slid into the water again, its bright blue barely visible beneath the surface before it disappeared. The Daymare could see it, though, as it created another sheet of ice above it. The Day Fury reappeared and sent a spray of mist in its face in annoyance. The Daymare only jumped up and flew low over the water, letting out jets of icy air and creating platform after platform, and the Day Fury leapt from one to another with the occasional flap of wings for the platforms further apart.

But when the Day Fury reached a certain platform, it shattered and collapsed, sending the dragon into the lake with an icy spray. It emerged a moment later, roaring in anger at the Daymare, which gave a broken chirping roar in return that could only be laughter.

"I think… I think they're playing," I realized, amazed. I continued to watch as the Day Fury gave chase, roaring but not breathing fire, as they both jumped on different platforms. Their romp carried them closer and closer to us, where they rolled onto the bank as the Day Fury pinned the Daymare on its back and roared triumphantly, teeth bared savagely and wings extended in dominance, before it bent down and fastened its jaws around the other dragon's neck.

I was shocked, as I thought they wouldn't hurt each other, but when I leaned closer to get a better look I saw that _the Day Fury had no teeth._

I frowned, confused, because I knew I had seen its teeth before, but now the Day Fury released the Daymare's neck as it gave a whimper of submission, and it gave a toothless roar in its face before licking its snout in seeming forgiveness.

The Daymare got up and shook itself before coughing up part of a fish, which the Day Fury snapped up with its now tooth-filled mouth.

"Retractable teeth," I murmured in realization.

"Must be why Hiccup named the Night Fury Toothless." Herryk replied.

"I wondered if I heard that wrong," I confessed, "but it sort of makes sense now."

The two dragons had heard us talking and were both eyeing us warily. We stayed still, relaxing and leaning against the tree in a non-threatening position. After a minute of staring at us and sniffing the air, pacing around a little but not getting closer, the dragons went back to jumping on the ice and catching fish, ignoring us.

We watched them for a while more, until Herryk noticed it was late afternoon, and we followed our path back to the campsite. I was relieved to finally get there, because although we had no new food, a few new blisters had opened on my ankle because of the chain. I washed it off with some snow, as did Herryk his ankle, we ate more of the venison, then went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up first again, but this time it was my turn to check the snares. I started walking down the now-familiar trail towards where we had set the thin ropes.

About halfway to the first trap, my ankle started hurting again. I bit my lip- it was worse this time. All the walking I had done yesterday must have aggravated it. I limped forward through the forest, and found the first trap empty. I scattered more bait, then continued to the second one.

There was a bird caught in this one. I squatted down and quickly twisted its neck, then glanced sharply upward as I heard soft footsteps. I jerked in surprise when I saw the Day Fury peering curiously at me through the trees.

I laughed softly to myself. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You can have it, if you want." I gestured to the bird I had taken from the noose of the snare as I sat back, wincing as I gingerly moved my ankle. "We have plenty of deer meat stored for now."

The dragon ignored my offering, instead cocking its head and slowly stepping towards me. It didn't look like it was going to attack, so I held very still, though my heart sped up wildly. The Day Fury bent its head towards the chain on my ankle and sniffed at it. I jumped in surprise when the dragon's scaly skin went from sky blue to a angry, stormy gray, before darkening into a deep, melancholy grey-blue, like the sky just before or after sunset. The Day Fury could change color! I supposed that made sense. The Night Fury blended in with the black night sky, but a Day Fury would have to blend in in both clouds and clear skies, at noon and at twilight.

The dragon poked the chain with its nose and crooned sadly, then turned its head back and let out a roar. I continued to sit in confusion as I heard the flapping of wings, and the Monstrous Daymare appeared, landing behind the Day Fury.

The Day Fury, still a dark blue, turned and made soft growling noises and cries, the Daymare making similar sounds in return. The pair then turned to me, the Day Fury sitting back, wrapping its tail around its legs, and the Daymare stepping forward, first its green eyes eyeing me cautiously, then lowering its snout to the chain and sniffing it, letting out a soft, angry growl of its own. It extended a black talon and tugged at the bottom of my leggings.

I frowned, unsure, but unrolled the end of it, hissing a little when it touched my scabbed, blistered, and lightly bleeding ankle.

The Daymare tapped the chain around my ankle and looked at me expectantly, if a dragon could do such a thing.

I tried covering the manacle with my pants leg, but the dragon huffed in annoyance and frustration. It gave me an almost stern look, then pulled the end of the chain towards itself, and proceeded to breathe a stream of air on it. The chain quickly frosted over, then the dragon scraped the ice off and banged the chain with its jaw. The frozen link shattered. The dragon looked back at me expectantly again.

"Oh…" I realized. "You're… you're going to get this chain off me?" I glanced at the Day Fury, which was once again a bright sky blue color, and it gave me a look that seemed to say _duh._

I bit my lip again as I rolled my pants leg _under_ the manacle, folding it up again for extra protection against the extreme cold that was soon to follow. The Daymare made a satisfied noise, placing its snout close to my ankle and letting out a thin stream of icy air. I winced a little- it was _cold!_

The Daymare stopped after a minute and banged its jaw against the metal ring. Half of it shattered, and when I lifted my leg, it slipped off my ankle. I stared at my ankle and the remains of the chain in amazement before looking back up at the Daymare. It gave a satisfied snort, then flew off.

"Wait…" I called, but it was gone. I turned back to the Day Fury, which stepped closer to me again, a questioning look on its face.

"Thank you," I said, sitting up and kneeling, "If you can understand me." Apparently it could, or could guess the meaning behind my words, because it let out a low hum. I carefully reached my hand towards its nose, like I had seen the other Viking teens do what felt like a lifetime ago. The dragon pulled its head back a little, growling softly and showing its teeth.

"Hey," I said softly, pulling my hand back, "I won't hurt you. I don't have any weapons. See, my hands are empty." I held my hands out, palms up, and the Day Fury looked at them, sniffing the air above them.

"That's right," I said soothingly, dropping my left arm to my side and extending my right hand forward, "I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay."

The dragon stared at my hand, eyes and pupils widening, and it twitched, but didn't move away. I laid my palm and fingers gently on its skin, and marveled at the scaly smooth yet warm skin. I slowly stood and laid my other hand on its head, and the dragon hummed, closing its eyes as I rubbed the white-tipped bumps that ran along the middle of its skull.

"Why did you help me?" I murmured, not really expecting an answer. To my surprise, the dragon pulled away, then lifted its wings and turned to show me its side. I knelt again as I saw a ring of lighter scales, a scar around both of its hind legs.

"You've been chained before," I realized in amazement. I looked the Day Fury in the eye again. "Thank you. And tell your friend thank you for me."

The dragon growled softly and jumped into the air, winging away. I watched it go, then turned to the bird and the chain. I picked up the bird and eyed the metal distastefully, but decided to take it with me back to the campsite. If we figured out how to get fire hot enough to melt or soften the metal, we could make things with it.

I hummed happily to myself as I checked the last snare- empty again- and went back to the campsite.

"Hey, Halfrida. You're in a good mood."

I put down the bird and held out the chain. "Herryk, look."

He took the metal and looked at the shattered ring. "What happened? Did you figure out how to break it?"

"Not exactly," I replied. I explained what had happened, with the Daymare's freezing breath, the Day Fury's color changing, touching it, and seeing its scars. When I finished, my brother was grinning.

"That's great! I can check the snares tomorrow, maybe they'll be there again."

"I hope so," I agreed. "And the Day Fury let me touch it… we're that much closer to getting back to Berk."

We ate dinner and went to sleep, our ankles sore but our hearts lighter.


	6. Chapter 6- Herryk

I woke up the next morning earlier than usual. It was dark, but the sky was starting to lighten in the east. The dragons probably wouldn't be at the second snare until later, but I was already hungry. I took some of the smoked deer meat from the leather bag and stuck it on a stick, then balanced the sticks on two other forked branches, turning it every few minutes.

I looked up as I heard a noise, thinking Halfrida was waking up, but instead I saw the Monstrous Daymare, poking its head from the trees. I could see the Day Fury behind it, skin dark, making it difficult to see in the early morning light.

"Hey," I said softly. I took out my dagger and dropped it near the fire before slowly stepping forward, hands extended. The Daymare pulled its head back a little, and I stopped.

"I won't hurt you. It's okay," I said in a soothing voice, and I stepped forward again. The Daymare allowed me to approach, and I laid my hand cautiously on its nose. It made a hesitant humming sound of surprise, but it didn't sound unhappy. I rubbed its bumpy skin, which seemed to flicker weirdly between hot and cold.

The dragon let out a puff of cold air from its nostrils, making frost form on the tips of my hair.

"Hey!" I laughed, shaking my head and sending the miniature icicles flying. The Daymare nudged me in the stomach and I fell backwards, landing on my rear, and the dragon tapped my chain with one of its front claws.

"Right," I remembered. I slipped my own pants leg under the manacle, rolling it up as Halfrida had said she had done. It stung against my blisters and cuts, but I ignored it and held my leg out to the dragon.

It let out a cool stream of air, or I suppose completely freezing jet of air would be more accurate. The Daymare banged against the metal, and it shattered.

"Thanks," I said, laying my hand carefully on its snout again. "Were you captured too?... Probably by the Barbarians, huh?"

The dragon growled softly at "Barbarians," but turned to show me the ankles of its two legs, which did have scars on them.

"Sorry about that," I said. "I don't think Berk Viking have ever kept their dragons chained up, just caged… in the dark…" The Daymare jerked, and I quickly added, "But I don't think we're going to do that anymore. If anyone's still alive, that is."

The dragon made a questioning noise as I rubbed its nose again.

"See, this boy, Hiccup, the son of the chief, shot down a Night Fury. I think that's when one of its tail fins got cut off. I guess he somehow gained its trust, and built it a new tail. He's apprenticing to the blacksmith, see. And he built a saddle too, so he could make sure the tail stayed up, I think, and I guess they fly around together… or used to… Anyway, the dragon, he named it Toothless, must have showed him the nest, with the queen. Hiccup was top of the dragon fighting class, but he never hurt any of them, and his dad the chief found out when he tried to tame the Monstrous Nightmare in his graduation fight… He might have done it better if he did it differently, if he kept the helmet on and didn't make a show of throwing it to the ground and declaring he wasn't a Viking… His father got angry, frightened the Nightmare, Toothless came in and saved him but got captured, and basically the whole village went off to the island, and Hiccup and his friends followed them riding the backs of the captured dragons… We don't know if they're safe or if our Dad is alive because we were captured before they could get back… but maybe the island is empty, maybe they're never coming back, Hiccup seemed scared of this huge queen dragon…"  
I put my head in my hands as I realized my explanation had turned into babbling. I looked up at Halfrida, who was now awake and looking almost as scared and lost as I was, but the Day Fury, now a pale grey like the morning mists, had crept out from the trees while I was talking and was standing near my sister as she patted its nose and head.

The Daymare nudged me and made soft, sympathetic sounding noises. Maybe they could understand the human tongue to some extent. Either way, I was grateful and I sighed as I scratched the horn on its nose again.

"Thanks for listening, if it means anything. And thanks for the help with the chains."

The Day Fury gave my sister a final nudge and flew off, and the Daymare turned to follow.

"Wait," I called, and it turned back. I pulled the mostly-cooked smoked meat of the fire, as I figured any raw parts wouldn't bother a dragon. "Here, have this." I held the stick out and the Daymare reached its neck forward and grabbed the meat with its teeth, pulled it off the stick, then swallowed. Its eyes widened and it shook its head back and forth, flaring its wings.

I backed up in panic for a second, worried I had somehow poisoned my possible method of transportation, but it started sniffing around the leather bag containing the rest of the smoked meat.

"You're not _that_ good of a cook," Halfrida snickered.

I shook my head. "I think it likes the smoked meat or something… Go on, I gave you some, but we need the rest for our own food."

The dragon let out an annoyed snort and flew off.

I sighed and turned back to the now-empty stick. "I'll go check the traps, you braid some rope."

Halfrida raised an eyebrow. "Technically, I am older, and therefore should be in charge… but yes, I will braid rope while you check the traps."

I checked the traps, but they were, unfortunately, empty. I scattered more bait around the ones that needed more, and returned to the campfire.

"Nothing," I reported.

Halfrida frowned, thoughtful. "Is there a stream on this island?"

"I'm not sure," I replied. "I'll check. There might be some freshwater clams or something… If I'm not back by this afternoon, put some green branches on the fire so I can see the smoke and get back if I get lost."

Halfrida nodded in understanding and I grabbed my rabbit-fur cap and walked off into the trees, trying to travel in a straight line, and marking my path every once in awhile. I examined the ground around me, looking at patches of softer dirt and mud to find the tracks of wolves, deer, rabbits, and birds. At the beginning, the ground was mostly flat or gently sloped, but as I got further, it became more cliff-like, with steep drops and edges, but as I went further, I found edible mushrooms and berries as well. I stuffed my pockets with them, and kept walking.

Around noon, I did find a freshwater stream. I peered in and felt around the bottom, and sure enough, I grabbed freshwater clams. I grinned and picked up two of them, as my pockets were already mostly stuffed with berries and mushrooms.

I hurried back, half jogging, half walking, and made it by mid-afternoon.

"Halfrida!" I called happily. I showed her my spoils, and soon she was grinning as well. "Maybe we should move closer, I did cross a couple clearings."

Halfrida nodded, then stopped, frowning. "But what about the dragons? Will they follow us there?"

I considered. "I don't know. They might understand if we explain to them. If they don't… we can come back, I suppose."

Halfrida hesitated, then nodded. "Alright. I'll come with you to check the place out tomorrow, and we can plan from there."

"Sure," I agreed.

We each had a small clam for dinner along with the mushrooms and berries. The two of us got up early the next morning, and I glanced up at the clouds in the sky and frowned.

"We had better make sure to mark our path," Halfrida said. "We might not be able to follow our footsteps on the way back if it rains."

"I think I marked the path pretty well," I replied, and we set off. Fortunately, I was not proved wrong, and I often recognized a broken branch or a stack of rocks I had made the day before.

About halfway there, we heard soft footsteps and snapping twigs.

"Day Fury?" Halfrida asked.

"Daymare?" I added hopefully.

We were greeted by not two pairs of glowing eyes, but eight.

"You know… I like wolves, but not so much when they look at me like food," Halfrida said, and I nodded in agreement as we turned and started running.

"Odin's beard," I muttered as the wolves chased after us. Though Vikings generally had good stamina, wolves were generally better. They were easier to deal with than dragons, but not so much if there were no weapons to be had and there was a pack of them, which was unfortunately the case.

My sister and I kept running, jumping nimbly over logs and tree roots, but the wolves followed, a couple flanking us.

"Do you get the feeling they could easily outrun us but they're just trying to tire us so we won't be able to fight?" I panted.

"Thor," Halfrida cursed in reply. I considered suggesting splitting up, but I decided that would be a bad idea in the long run.

We kept running, but couldn't keep up a good sprint for more than fifteen minutes, and even that would be difficult if we weren't running on adrenalin. I grabbed a fallen branch as we ran, stumbling, and my heart pounded even faster for a moment as a wolf snapped at my heels. Halfrida copied my motions a moment later. I turned and tried to swipe at one of the wolves with the branches, and it danced back out of the way. I grinned with success and tried again, but the wolf grabbed it with its teeth and pulled back. I cried out as I stumbled and began to fall, but Halfrida grabbed my arm and pulled me up, and we kept running.

A couple minutes later, Halfrida tripped over a tree root, and didn't get up again. I stopped to help her, but my own knees gave out and I collapsed to the ground.

"No… help…Help!" I feebly shouted as I drew my dagger and attempted to sit up. The wolves circled around us, hungry looks on their faces.

I suddenly heard a pair of angry roars and a shadow fell over me. The wolves shrank back for an instant before barking and darting forward, determined not to lose their prey. My heart fluttered with hope as I lifted my head to see jets of ice and explosions of fire.

With a two final savage roars, the wolves tucked their tails between their legs and ran.

I struggled to my feet, only to collapse against the Daymare's neck again.

"Thank you," I sobbed, clinging to it. "You saved us… thank you…"

The dragon jerked in surprise in confusion before letting out a soothing humming sound and gently lowering me to the ground. I looked over at Halfrida, who was still lying on her back, eyes closed, a single tear rolling down her cheek as the soft grey Day Fury sniffed at her face. I worried for a moment that she was hurt, but she sat up and rested her forehead against the dragon's nose for a brief moment before pulling herself to her feet and laying a hand on top of its head, murmuring words of thanks.

We rested for a few more minutes, leaning against trees and the dragons, before continuing towards the stream. The dragons walked beside us, but flew away once we reached the water and began collecting clams.

After about half an hour, our bag was filled with clams, berries, and mushrooms, and we were mostly recovered from our run.

"I hope the wolves don't come after us again," Halfrida worried as we started back down the trail.

I shook my head. "I think the dragons scared them pretty good." I crossed my fingers and hoped I wouldn't be proven wrong.


	7. Chapter 7- Halfrida

**A/N: Hi! I'm not sure if chapter 6 posted correctly, I didn't get the email alert sent to me, but I'm pretty sure the chapter itself is there. If you haven't, you should probably read that before chapter 7.**

The walk back was tiring, and felt much longer, but that wasn't much of a surprise. The wind picked up a little as we walked, and I shivered, making a mental note to make more clothes from rabbit fur, as winter was fast approaching. We had been walking for about an hour when raindrops started to fall. Five minutes later, it was downpouring frigid, almost icy rain. The path became muddy, but Herryk seemed mostly confident of where we were heading.

We continued walking for another couple of hours, as the ground was too muddy and slippery to chance running. I could bandage and give first aid as well as your average Viking, which was pretty well considering our lifestyle, but neither of us wanted to deal with major injuries right now. Eventually the rain lightened up to a drizzle, and we could see a little better. Within fifteen minutes, we got back to our campsite.

I knelt next to the fire pit and groaned when I saw that the fire was well and truly out, all the wood soaked and cold and the ground beneath wet and muddy.

Herryk stood by shivering as I made my discovery. "I'll go see if I can find some dry wood," he offered, but he didn't sound very hopeful.

I turned back to the fire pit and started to clear away the wet firewood and grey mushy ashes as the rain continued to shower down.

Herryk returned a few minutes later, holding a bundle of wood. "These seemed a little drier than the rest…"

We tried to start a fire but to no avail. Any small sparks that caught the tinder quickly fizzled out. The rain continued to rain, lightly but steadily, as the sky began to darken. Or rather, everything began to darken- the open sky was hidden under a blanket of clouds, and there was no fire to light around our campsite.

"Huddle together for warmth," I suggested once we had finally given up on kindling any sort of flame. We sat close together in front of the fire pit, shivering.

We sat for maybe an hour, maybe minute, maybe a week, but probably an hour based on the continuing darkening of the sky and the landscape around us.

It was cold, and I shook hard with each gust of wind stealing more heat from my soaked clothes, my teeth chattering, even with Herryk pressed against me. I hoped this wasn't going to keep up all night. We could get seriously sick, and we would probably get next to no sleep, but we would survive. At least, I was pretty sure we would. I hoped we would. I hugged myself tighter and gave a desperate prayer to the gods, my eyes darting around at the dark, empty trees.

Eventually, when the wind was a little quieter, I thought I heard footsteps in the darkness.

"The wolves found us," I moaned, and Herryk buried his head in his arms.

"Pretend you don't exist, and maybe they'll leave us alone."

He probably didn't mean quite what he said, but neither of us were thinking straight and I couldn't think of any way standing up would help, so I stayed huddled, head down. I felt tears start to form in my eyes for the second time that day.

A few seconds later I felt hot breath on the back of my neck. I closed my eyes, prepared for the worst, but praying to all the gods the wolves would leave.

I felt the wolf's nose brush against my skin… only it wasn't cold and wet, in was warm, dry, and… scaly.

I quickly reached a hand up behind me, wincing at the cold, but I had to be sure. I found the source of the heat, and rubbed over the smooth yet bumpy and somehow soft skin with relief blossoming through me.

I laughed, a little delirious with the relief, and stood up to face the dragon in the darkness. "Herryk, it's the dragons… or the Day Fury at least. I can't see anything."

The Day Fury pulled away, and a second later I could see. A stream of fire came from the Day Fury's jaws- but it wasn't normal fire. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny specks of flame, not quite like embers floating up from a fire, not quite like the sparks from a Zippleback, not quite like small balls of flame, but somewhere between all three. It went above us and swirled around, giving faint heat and light, looking like stars beneath the clouds. I gazed up at the flaming sparks in awe before looking around the clearing again.

The currently deep, dark blue Day Fury was looking up at the fire as well, pupils wide as the firelight reflected off of them, ear flaps lifted above its head. Even through my shivering, I saw the dragon looked… peaceful, maybe, and… cute, even, which I didn't know was possible for a dragon, except maybe for a newborn hatchling.

The Daymare was there, too, in the clearing, watching. I saw Herryk walk over to it and pat its nose, which the dragon allowed without flinching, even leaning into the touch a little this time.

I turned back to the Day Fury, who was now looking at me.

"Thanks," I said, smiling and placing a hand on its head. I turned away and sat back down, pulling my legs to my chest and continuing to shiver, but I was grateful for the light and the slight heat the fiery sparks provided.

Herryk sat down a few feet away and all was silent for a minute, before I heard a large exhale of breath, almost like a sigh, and footsteps again, as the dragons left. But instead of the footsteps quietly leaving, they got closer, and I suddenly had a fold of velvety leather wrapped around me.

My teeth stopped chattering as I soaked in the wonderful heat, and I leaned back against the Day Fury's shoulder, feeling the rush of glorious warmth let off from the heater that was the dragon's body. The Day Fury stepped closer until I was enveloped in one of its wings and pressed against its warm body, and the dragon folded its legs underneath itself, lying down but keeping its head up as it looked at me.

"You're going to stay?" I checked, and the Day Fury hummed softly, eyes wide and warm.

I sat like that for another minute as my shivering slowly subsided and the dragon laid down its head and closed its eyes. Eventually, I did the same, using one of its forelegs for a pillow. I was just beginning to drift off when I remembered my brother.

"Herryk," I whispered, tapping the Day Fury's shoulder. It opened its eyes slowly and lifted its head, first looking at me, then at the other side of our small clearing. I followed its gaze to see the young Viking fast asleep tucked under the wing of the Daymare. I didn't know how a dragon that could create ice and shatter metal with its breath could be warm enough to help in this weather, but I decided not to question it.

I laid my head back, looking at the stormy sky, which was only sprinkling rain now, but the floating embers of flame were starting to wink out. The Day Fury lifted its head, and the air was filled with dancing stars of fire once more.

I sat up and looked at the dragon thoughtfully, and it turned to look back at me curiously.

"You're more than just an 'it,'" I realized. "You're intelligent, strong, thoughtful… you're special, more than just another beast." The Day Fury tilted its head a little but made no other reply. "I swear you understand at least most of the very words I'm speaking… You do, don't you? You are intelligent, intelligent enough to pick up on the words we say, and when you were held captive."

The dragon let out a pleased hum, lifting its ear flaps higher.

I smiled. "You need a name… You seem female to me, but I'm not sure…"

The Day Fury's humming increased.

"Not a male, then?" I checked, and the dragon snorted.

"Alright, well, the only dragon name I know is Toothless, so something similar…" I looked back up at the sky, and an idea came to me. "How about… Starfire?"

The dragon tilted her head for a moment, then exhaled another stream of sparks, this time lower, the embers dancing around our heads before quickly going out.

I grinned. "I'll take that as a yes, then."

Starfire gazed at me for another moment before laying her head down. I did the same, curling into her warm belly. Her inky blue wing dropped over my head and her tail wrapped around us. Though the night was as dark as it had been before, and I was all but clutched in the claws of a beast that I once would have fought to the death, I somehow felt safer than I ever had in the brightest, most dragon-free day.


	8. Chapter 8- Herryk

**A/N: Hi! I'm not sure if the alerts worked properly for the past two chapters or so, so if you haven't read 6 and 7, you should probably do that before reading this…**

I woke up and saw that my skin had turned blue.

Well, it wasn't really blue. I opened my eyes when the birds started to sing, to find that I was still under the wing of the Monstrous Daymare, and the morning sun's rays filtering through cast a blue light over me.

I started to sit up, and the dragon lifted its wing, the chilly morning air rushing in and waking me further. It was cold, but as it was no longer rainy and windy and my clothes had mostly dried, it wasn't so bad. The Daymare was already awake, looking around the campsite. I stood and patted its nose, and it closed its eyes lazily.

I looked over to the other side of the camp to see the silvery-grey Day Fury, one wing lowered, and its tail and head curled around it, eyes still closed. I assumed Halfrida was under its wing. I joined the Daymare in looking around at the crisp new morning, and absentmindedly laid a hand on its wing, only to find it was icy cold.

I turned to the dragon and frowned. "I could have sworn your wing was warm earlier."

The Daymare nudged my arm and I put my hand back on its wing. It went from icy to warm in a few seconds, then back again.

"You can control your body heat… at least close to your skin, anyway," I marveled. The dragon nudged me away, then suddenly burst into blue flame. I threw an arm over my face, but felt no heat radiating from it- the air seemed even colder than before.

I took a step forward and the Daymare growled a warning.

"Don't worry, I won't touch, I'll be careful," I soothed. I stepped closer and waved my hand a foot from the flames, feeling the cold. I looked around and found a stick, still wet from the night before, and I laid it gently on the dragon's skin. Frost spread slowly up the length of the stick as the water in the wood froze.

"Cool," I said. "Pun intended."

The Daymare gave me a look.

I spun around as I heard a soft roar, but the Day Fury was only yawning, stretching out its claws and wings, and shifting to a pale blue. Halfrida was still curled up, back pressed against the dragon's belly. The Day Fury turned its head and snuffled her hair, nudging her until she sat up.

"Morning," she muttered sleepily. The Daymare's head appeared over my shoulder and it gave a puff of cold air to her face.

"Gah!" my sister yelped, standing up and brushing little bits of frost from her face and clothes. I snickered and the Daymare joined me, rumbling deep in its throat.

Halfrida glared at us. "Very funny, you two."

The Daymare and I glanced at each other in surprise- 'you two'? As in she thought we were a pair? That we were equals, or at least almost equals?

But as I thought about it, I realized my subconscious had been going the same way- the two of us had laughed together, glanced at each other after my sister's statement.

I shrugged and started scratching the scales around the Daymare's horns. It rumbled in its throat and nudged me in return.

The Day Fury grabbed a small log in its mouth and dropped it in the previously empty fire pit. It then breathed out a green gas, similar to a Zippleback's but paler, and more blue than yellow, and the gas settled around the log. The dragon took a step back and breathed out a small shot of fiery sparks, which exploded when they came in contact with the gas, and Halfrida and I jumped. When I looked again, the log was blazing.

"Instant campfire," Halfrida said, sounding pleased. The Day Fury also had a rather pleased look on its face. "Can you breathe fire normally?" Halfrida asked, and the dragon opened its jaws and breathed a tongue of flame into the sky. It didn't go as far as a Night Fury's, but it seemed to be just as hot from its appearance. When I looked at it from a certain angle, I could see that it was really a thin stream of the gas lit by sparks in the dragon's mouth.

"So, sparks and gas, sort of, like a Zippleback, and color changing, like a changewing," I mused. "I've only seen it do blue and grey, can it do anything else?"

The Day Fury proceeded to change color, one hue flowing into the next- a pale blue to a bright sky blue, a vibrant summer ocean blue, a dark, deep blue that was nearing black, a dark and stormy grey, a silvery grey, and a pale, almost white grey, and everything in between.

"Huh. Only blue and grey."

As if to protest my statement, the dragon exhaled a cloud of white, which spread over and blanketed the campsite. I ducked, thinking it would be set aflame, but when the Day Fury released the sparks of fire, they quickly fizzled out. The fire in the pit remained steady, only flickering a little.

"Is this… fog?" Halfrida said in wonder, though I couldn't see her through the thick white. The Day Fury let out a quick burst of green gas and sparks, and the resulting small explosion heated and scattered the white mist.

The dragon, now pale blue, again looked pleased with itself and hummed contentedly when Halfrida rubbed its head.

I turned back to the Daymare, who was now covered in icicles. I snickered and moved to brush them off, but they melted off a second later as the dragon brought heat to its skin.

"Very talented, aren't you, Starfire?" Halfrida murmured, now scratching the dragon's neck.

"Starfire?" I asked in confusion. "You named it?"

Halfrida shrugged. "I figured I might as well. She liked the idea."

"She?" I asked again.

Halfrida smiled. "They're intelligent, they understand most of what we say."

I turned to the Daymare, which was looking at me curiously. I considered it, wondering if I should give it a name. To my surprise, when I thought about it, I liked the idea of spending more time- possibly the rest of my life- with this dragon nearby.

"Well? Are you a he or a she?" I asked the Daymare directly. It snorted in the direction of Halfrida and Starfire, then nudged me.

"Uh… Male?" I guessed, and the dragon nudged me again. "Okay… Now for a name… any ideas?" I aimed the question at my sister, but it was the Daymare who responded, bursting into pale blue flames.

"Okay, something to do with fire? Like your friend," I guessed. "Bluefire would be weird… but you and your flames are cold… so how about Iceflame?"

The Daymare cocked his head, then let out a pleased snort.

"Iceflame it is," I said cheerfully. I grinned as I realized I was now the sort of owner of the literal coolest dragon around. I couldn't wait to show my friends, and maybe even Hiccup and his friends would be impressed! But we still had a ways to go before that could ever happen, so I needed to prioritize. "Let's have breakfast."

Halfrida got up and went to check the traps, Starfire following her. I set up the forked sticks that would let us roast whatever she came back with over the fire.

Iceflame, meanwhile, wandered over to the bag where we kept the smoked deer meat, flipped it open with one of his talons, and proceeded to swallow half the meat.

"Hey!" I protested, shooing him away. He flew to the other end of the small clearing and licked his claws.

I shook my head. Extremely intelligent though dragons may be, they were still animals.

Halfrida returned soon later, with two rabbits, and Starfire flew down with a fish in her mouth, and offered it to my sister.

"Umm… thanks," Halfrida replied, a little confused as she took the fish, which was partially coated in dragon saliva.

I snickered at her look of bewilderment before hurriedly snatching the bag of smoked venison away from Iceflame again.

Did we really know what we were getting into?

We ate breakfast at a leisurely pace, I had rabbit while Halfrida fried the fish on a hot rock, graciously heated by Starfire. We both had berries, and offered them to the dragons, but they seemed distrustful of them.

We then decided to go along with our plan to move on to the more edible side of the island. I took down the snares, and we packed up all we had, tying what we couldn't easily carry to Starfire's back, which wasn't much. We decided that, as neither of the dragons were used to carrying anything besides food, and weren't used to carrying anything on their backs, it was safer to tie our things to the dragon that couldn't accidentally freeze them. After sniffing curiously for a minute, both dragons accepted the arrangement. While they could understand the gist of what we were saying, that didn't mean they totally understood us as humans and all our fancy tools.

The dragons followed us in the air as we walked and jogged to the other portion of the island, gathering some food along the way. We reached the stream and followed it downwards, looking for a place to stop and camp.

"How about here?" Halfrida suggested, setting down her pack in a safe-looking clearing, surrounded by trees and bushy plants that would keep away animals that didn't enter by the stream.

"Sure," I agreed, setting down my own pack. The clearing was a little small, but it would do. I saw the stream became a waterfall a bit ahead, so I decided to see if there was a pool at the bottom. I followed it to to the end, Iceflame walking behind me, and I stopped, gazing at the sight below.

"Hey, Frida… you might want to see this."

My sister jogged up, her eyes widening when she saw the sight. There was indeed a pool at the bottom of the waterfall. The pool was in an almost bowl-shaped valley, cliffs going down to the floor on three sides, while the fourth side was a cliff itself, opening to the air above the ocean.

"It looks like… it looks like a long time ago, there used to be a lake here, but the cliff wall broke away, and it all drained to the ocean, except for that pool… see, there's a waterfall at the end, falling into the sea," Halfrida guessed.

"Someone must have lived here, though." I replied. From where we were standing at the top of the first waterfall I could see that, on our right by the cliffs that dropped to the ocean, a path slanted down one side of the valley, ending near the bottom of the waterfall. The side of the valley open to the air was also blocked by a line of trees. We walked to the top of the path, and I saw that part of the land at the bottom of the valley closest to us jutted out over the ocean- an excellent lookout place. From there, a set of fairly dangerous looking switchbacks led to a beach further down a ways on the left, part of the path actually going behind the waterfall.

"They must have left… or been attacked… probably attacked, or their houses weren't very strong at all, because there aren't any remnants," Halfrida reflected. Below us, the dragons flew down into the valley. It was fairly large- you might be able to fit a longship at its widest point. For two Vikings and two dragons, there was room to spare.

"C'mon," I said, and we jogged back to the previous small clearing to grab our packs, then started down the path. It was old, and a bit eroded, and we had to watch our step in a few places, but we made it down safely. To our surprise and glee, there was a cave beneath the pathway down. It didn't go too terribly deep, there were no offshoots or other caverns, but it went deep enough to hopefully be good shelter for the four of us if a normal amount of rain or snow fell.

We put our things in the cavern, and built a fire a little ways away so it didn't fill with smoke. The sky began to darken, and we sat by the fire as the dragons landed.

I frowned as the dragons began to fold their wings. "Hang on, they're hurt."

Halfrida stood up and walked over to Starfire, gently lifting one of her wings. The dark grey dragon shied away, growling softly.

"Let me see," my sister said sternly, and the dragon obeyed. Starfire had a gash on her side- one of the wolves had clawed her. Iceflame had a similar injury, but on his opposite side, and closer to his wing joint.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Halfrida sighed sadly, dropping the Day Fury's wing.

"They're dragons, I don't think they're used to being fussed over," I replied, examining the scratch Iceflame had. I was sure the only reason the two had been injured was because they were protecting us from a whole wolf pack of eight- if we hadn't been helpless on the ground, they could have stayed in the air and easily picked off the wolves.

By the look on Halfrida's face, I could see she had come to the same conclusion. Fortunately, though one could argue it was our fault the dragons were wounded, the two of us were more practical minded than most Vikings and accepted that while we were the ones who put the dragons in that situation, the overall situation was out of our control, and there was no point worrying about it if we could better spend our time fixing it. Most Vikings, however… I grinned to myself. Most Vikings would spend hours stubbornly blaming it on someone else, and the party that actually received the scars would display them proudly and over exaggerate their heroics in the retelling of the battle.

Halfrida and I gathered herbs we had seen growing a ways up the stream- my sister and the other Viking girls had all been taught about edible food and medicinal herbs from a young age- and crushed them between two stones, then bound them to the dragons' injuries using the vine rope.

Iceflame cautiously sniffed at the herbs when I had finished, then wrinkled his nose and snorted.

"Leave it," I said sternly. "It'll help you heal faster and stop whatever might have been on those wolves' claws from spreading." Or at least I was pretty sure it would. Neither of us had treated dragon wounds before, though Halfrida had helped people with injuries received because of dragons.

Iceflame sighed a great breath of cold air before nudging me in thanks and lying down in front of the fire, a wing open in invitation.

I grinned and laid down next to the Daymare, quickly falling asleep.

The next morning, after Halfrida and I ate breakfast, the two dragons seemed to be having some sort of conversation or argument with each other. I glanced at my sister as we sat on a log near the fire, and she had an eyebrow raised, apparently just as confused as me.

"What's going on?" I asked after a few minutes. Iceflame turned to look at us and jerked his head in a 'follow us' motion, before the two dragons walked to the edge of the cliffs, turning their heads back to stare at us. I exchanged glances with Halfrida and shrugged, and we got up and followed them. The dragons leapt off the edge, hovering and flying back and forth along the path carved into the cliff.

"Okay… apparently they want us to go down the path… here goes nothing," I muttered, starting down. The path was narrow, and crumbling in some places, but what's the life of a Viking without a little danger? My sister and I were still small for Vikings, so we carefully picked our way down, hugging the cliff when the wind gusted.

After about half an hour, we made it all the way down to the pebbled beach. Iceflame roared and continued to fly down the beach. Halfrida and I jogged after the two dragons. They kept flying ahead of us for about five minutes. The beach soon ended with another cliff jutting into the ocean, so we went through the forest up and around it. We came out on another beach-a beach with a ship grounded on it.

I grabbed Halfrida's arm and pulled her back, but the two dragons landed on the boat fearlessly. I noticed the sail was limp, and falling apart, but bore the symbol of the Bashing Barbarians. The ship was clearly old and abandoned.

"What happened here?" I asked, walking forward. Iceflame let out a jet of cold air and Starfire shot a small firebolt at the beach.

"Got it," I replied, and Halfrida chuckled at their self-satisfied expressions. I clambered over the edge of the ship, my sister close behind me. I grinned at the sight before me.

"This ship hasn't been pillaged at all… Look! Rope, glorious rope!" I picked up a coil of the stuff and spun around.

Halfrida laughed at me but slung her own pile of rope over her shoulder. I went to the back of the ship. Not watching where I was stepping I stepped on a rotting board that broke from my weight.

"Halfrida, watch your step. You don't want to fall" I warned. "Hey, Iceflame! Can you pull me up?" I hollered

The big Daymare flew around me. His claws grabbed my shoulders and yanked my leg out of the hole.

"Thanks… Hey, Frida, did that count as flying?" I whispered to my sister.

She rolled her eyes. "No. Keep looting."

I dropped the rope on the ground outside the ship and then wandered carefully to the prow. I knelt and pulled up the boards, beaming at the large bundle of weapons I found. I hauled them up with help from Halfrida, as the dragons were still a little wary of the Barbarian weapons.

"We'll sort through them later, take a few we like, and the rest we can make into tools," I decided. Maybe we could bang them into more useful shapes with the help of dragon fire.

Halfrida's eyes lit up. "Tools! I'm going to see if I can find the repair tools for the ship." She ran off, nimbly leaping from board to board, carefully stepping on the most solid-looking planks.

I started looking in the rowers' chests. There were some useful things- bedrolls of leather and furs, needles, thread, and cords, which I tossed down to the beach. I also found bows, arrows, and spears, while Halfrida found good extra wood, along with the tools for fixing the ship.

I went to the other end of the ship and lifted the planks there, but I found a not-so-welcome sight.

"Dragon nets," I reported. "And chains."

The dragons growled softly and Halfrida peered down. "Let's just leave those there… if we need nets for anything we can make our own with the rope."

I nodded in agreement and replaced the planks. Once I was sure we had taken all we needed- or at least all we needed for now, as we could always come back later- I jumped over the railing, Halfrida again behind me.

I stared at our pile of loot. "Wonderful… Now to get this back up the cliff." I turned to the dragons. "Would you mind carrying this up the cliff? It might take a few trips."

"Wait," Halfrida said. "Let's get these all into manageable bundles first."

We wrapped piles of weapons, tools, and wood in the leather and furs, then tied them with sections of rope, cut with the nice metal daggers we had found.

We had everything, including ourselves, back up the cliffs in an hour. We had lunch, then started sorting through everything, putting things in various places in the back of the cave, deciding which weapons to keep and which to dismantle for their parts, and which wood was good to use and which was better to burn.

We finished the task to our satisfaction by sunset, then, exhausted but happy, fell into a deep sleep.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading so far! Review if you have any feedback, questions, comments, suggestions, constructive criticism.**

 **On another note, I've started writing another httyd story, this one an AU and centered on Hiccup, not any OCs. I'll post it soon once I have a bit more of it written- I just finished the first chapter today.**


	9. Chapter 9- Halfrida

Despite my exhaustion, I woke up fairly early the next morning. Starfire did as well, though it could be possible that we woke each other up. First thing, she went out fishing over the ocean.

I grabbed a thicker blanket from our new stash of furs and went out to the cliff's edge and sat, watching her. I could see she loved flying, swooping up and down, her colors changing back and forth in her carefree attitude, only sticking to pale grey-blue to blend in with the sky as she approached the water, sneaking up on unsuspecting fish.

When she was done, she flew back up the cliff, and landed beside me. I scooted closer and rubbed her head, and she hummed contentedly, folding her legs beneath her as she shifted to a serene silvery-grey.

We sat there for a while, basking in the early morning rays of the slowly rising sun, and listening to the chirping of the birds.

As I kept gently stroking Starfire's head, I thought about her swooping, twirling, and gliding above the water, and I made a decision.

We were going to learn to fly today.

A smile spread across my face at the thought, and Starfire hummed.

Later that morning, after we had breakfast, I went into the cave and started looking through the pile of leather we had.

"What're you doing?" Herryk asked as he wandered over.

I grinned at him. "I thought it was about time we started making saddles."

My brother's eyes lit up. "Great… But do we really need saddles? Snotlout and the others didn't use any."

I selected a good-looking piece from the pile and pulled it out. "Perhaps. But that was an emergency. And even if Toothless only had a saddle because of his tail, do you really want to ride bareback on Iceflame's neck? Especially if if he sets himself on fire?"

Herryk agreed it was a good idea to make saddles.

We gathered the leather, a couple of daggers, some strong rope of middling thickness, and a charcoal pencil. As we did so, the dragons came up to us and sniffed at the objects curiously.

I smiled at Starfire's tilt of her head and questioning look. "You remember Herryk mentioned Hiccup made a saddle and rode Toothless, the Night Fury? We were thinking we would do the same… if you're okay with it, that is," I finished nervously.

Neither Starfire nor Iceflame seemed to have any objection, and stood still while we figured out what to do and took their measurements, though they watched us and sniffed and poked at things once in awhile.

"Okay," I muttered, "Let's start with Starfire's, because we've already seen a Night Fury saddle, and it should be pretty much the same, but less complicated…" Herryk nodded in agreement, looking over my shoulder as I sketched on the floor of the cave. "So we'll need a strap to keep it from sliding forward, a strap to keep it from sliding back… Maybe a long oval of leather… with a strap in front around her neck… and a strap in the back, behind her front legs..."

"My memory might not be perfect, but I got a decent look at Toothless' saddle. I think there were metal rings around his front legs, but that might have been to help control the tail."

I nodded. "I don't think we'll have that issue, but I will need to be able to hold on. If I just have the front rope as a loop… and stick it through slits in the leather instead of tying it on either end… I can hold on to the rope."

Herryk looked over my sketch, and shrugged. "It'll work, I think." He took the pencil and started drawing a few feet away. "I think I'll need the same sort of oval of leather, but I'm not sure how to keep it secure…" He got up and walked over to Iceflame, examining his neck by his head. "There's a gap between the spines large enough to sit here. I could tie rope to the end of the leather and around the spines in front and back…"

"I don't think that would be very secure," I commented with a frown.

Herryk's eyes narrowed, before he brightened. "But if I tie a loop of rope behind the spike behind the saddle, and a loop of rope in front of the spike in front of the saddle, by his head, then tied the leather to the loops of rope instead of the spikes themselves…"

"That would work," I agreed. "And you can just hold on to his horns."

The two of us got to work, measuring around our dragons' necks in different places, and tying rope securely but not too tight. We cut shapes out of the leather with our pillaged daggers, cut slits, and tied knots.

Finally, we stood back and admired our work. Starfire and Iceflame were now fitted with saddles, admittedly very basic saddles, but they at least looked like they would function properly.

I took a deep breath. "Here goes nothing." I pulled myself up onto Starfire's neck. She took a few experimental steps, flexed her wings, and turned her head to try and look at me, in the end accepting the turn of events as one that wouldn't cause any major problems.

Herryk jumped up and grabbed onto Iceflame's spines, swinging a leg over into the saddle before grabbing his horns. Iceflame was likewise a little disoriented by the sudden weight, but soon recovered.

I shifted a little in my seat- it was comfortable enough for now, but that might change after a while sitting like this. "Okay, Star, let's go."

Starfire twitched an ear at the new nickname, but otherwise walked calmly out of the cave, Iceflame and Herryk behind us.

I looked around. "Um… I'm not sure where to start… You take charge, you know what you're doing."

Starfire shrugged her wings and walked forward, across the small clearing and through the trees before stopping at the cliff above the ocean.

I swallowed nervously but didn't even think of backing out. I didn't have any particular fear of heights, and though I was a fairly non-violent Viking, I was still a Viking, and wouldn't back down from a challenge easily unless the challenge was stupid and dangerous with no purpose.

Granted, this was still stupid and dangerous, but I wanted to ride a dragon, especially Starfire, and I wanted to be able to get back home to Berk.

I looked at my brother, and he nodded from Iceflame's neck, a huge grin on his face.

I nodded back and gripped Starfire's neck more firmly with my knees. "Okay. Go."

Starfire leapt off the cliff over the ocean. I bit back a scream as we free-fell for a few seconds before she snapped her wings open and we glided. I looked down at the ocean, crashing beneath us, but I didn't feel like I was going to fall.

Starfire tilted her head and looked back at me in question.

"I'm good. Keep going."

Starfire flapped her wings and lifted her head, taking us higher. I glanced back at my brother, who gave me a thumbs-up before twisting Iceflame's head with his horns to the left. The dragon slowly banked and turned around.

I glanced down at my rope handhold- I couldn't exactly twist my dragon's head to steer it. I got a good grip with my hands and knees and leaned to the left. Starfire thankfully understood and tilted, turning, then flapping her wings to catch up with the Daymare. I laughed as we picked up speed.

Starfire snorted, then tipped forward, going into a dive. I grabbed the rope and leaned forward as the our momentum increased, and we hurtled towards the water. The wind rushed through my hair, and I let out a whoop as we swooped up again just before hitting the sea.

I grinned as she lazily circled upwards, gaining altitude with each round, until we were above them. I leaned towards them, and Starfire responded, tucking her wings and falling forward, before suddenly opening them again, buffeting the pair with wind as we zipped over them.

"Hey!" Herryk protested before giving chase with Iceflame. We swooped around each other, turning and diving, before I nudged Starfire back towards the island again.

The dragons flew upwards, then continued. Soon we were flying over cliffs, forests, meadows, and lakes.

"This is amazing," I uttered. "You can see everything from here… It would take hours to cross it on foot, but from here it only takes a minute. It makes me feel so free… and it's beautiful."

Starfire hummed in happy agreement. We did a few gentler turns and dives, then started to head back to the valley.

As we got closer, the two dragons started growling at each other again in a sort of conversation. I glanced at Herryk, who shrugged, again just as clueless as I was.

A moment later Starfire suddenly rolled over in the air in unison with Iceflame. My brother and I were both caught by surprise, and we fell, landing in the frigid pool of water in our valley.

"Cold!" Herryk spluttered when he came up for air. The two dragons circled above us, making noises that sounded suspiciously like laughing.

"Yeah, very funny," I called back at them, swimming to the shore and climbing out. Starfire took pity on us and started a fire so we could warm up and not die of hypothermia, so I forgave her and leaned against her by the flames. Herryk was still a little miffed, but stuck close to Iceflame anyway as he was warm when he wanted to be.

"Alright, first thing on the list," I said, squeezing some water out of my braided hair, "We need to make some winter clothes. Second," I glared in mock annoyance at Starfire, "We need better saddles. Ones with more padding and straps to keep us from _falling off._ "

Iceflame let out a sort of snicker, but quickly quieted.

Herryk nodded. "Plus, while flying was awesome and cool, it was cool. Cold, I mean. With no protection from the wind and the height, we need better and warmer clothes."

I frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe if we could make jackets or cloaks from leather and furs to wear over our clothes… I'll figure that out tomorrow," I decided.

The sun set beneath the horizon, and I curled up beneath Starfire's wing once again.

 **A/N: Please review if you have any comments, etc.**

 **I may post the second story I've been working on soon. The basic premise- Hiccup touches an ancient stone/artifact thing, maybe half a year or so after HTTYD 2. The stone goes back in time, splitting the timeline to create an alternate universe. The Hiccup from this universe, who has just started dragon training, is taken forward in time, to see what he would have become if the stone didn't interfere. He learns and grows, but eventually must go back to his own time- but will what he has learned make bringing peace to Vikings and dragons any easier?**


	10. Chapter 10- Herryk

The next day was colder, so we spent the day mostly in the cave, making clothes and other things out of the leather and furs. I wasn't very experienced when it came to sewing, but Halfrida knew what to do, and showed me the basics. I struggled a bit at the beginning, but fell into a pattern, making stitches that weren't quite as neat and tight as my sister's, but it would hopefully keep me warm.

We started with basic jackets that would keep out the cold. Halfrida and I took measurements, and she sketched out patterns on rolls of leather. I cut them out with a dagger, and then Halfrida outlined patterns on some of the furs, and I cut them out. Then Halfrida and I sewed them together, though she did most of it.

We also sewed some of the thinner leather onto the inside thighs and seats of our pants, for protection against wear and tear when we flew on the dragons, though it wasn't as big of a deal for Halfrida because she wore a leather and wool skirt over her leggings.

The dragons watched, curious and confused, sniffing and poking at various objects and articles of clothing, but eventually got bored and went out flying and fishing. By the time we had finished making the various sets of clothing, along with a couple bags, the day was over.

The next morning, we fortunately still had a bunch of leather and cords left, because we needed to make better saddles.

I sat on Iceflame's neck, where we had put the saddle before, and frowned.

"Sitting here and holding the horns felt a little awkward… and I think Snotlout sat further back in the Nightmare's neck." I let go of one of the horns and turned around. "But that doesn't make sense, because the rest of the neck is covered in spines."

"Are they flexible?" Halfrida wondered. "Maybe he sat on top of them."

I bent the spine behind me experimentally. Sure enough, it bent easily, bending as far as was possible with the neck in the way. Iceflame didn't seem to feel anything, or if he did, it didn't hurt him.

"Well, this changes things," I noted. I took Iceflame's saddle and put it on him, only further back this time, bending down the spines it was on top of, then I grabbed his horns and got back on.

"This is much better," I said with satisfaction.

Halfrida walked back and forth along the dragon's neck, considering. "I was planning on putting straps on mine, so we can't fall off, but in different places- if I wanted to sit a different way. I think there's a better way to sit if you want to go fast, for example."

I thought about that for a moment, then scooted forward on my patient dragon's neck. I leaned forward, and this time grabbed his lower set of horns. "Like this?"

"Yeah… stay like that for a minute…" Halfrida took out the charcoal pencil and sketched on the ground. When she signaled for me to dismount, Iceflame and I peered over her shoulder. She had drawn a saddle that was longer, covering several of the Daymare's spines, and with straps in two places- normal flight, which would probably be more comfortable for longer distances, and the position where I leaned forward for faster flight.

"Nice," I commented, "But while I think the leaning and moving forward was a good idea, my legs got tired after a bit. What if we added stirrups?"

Halfrida grinned. "Brilliant. We don't have to control a prosthetic tail just to have stirrups. So if we add a strap here… and here…" she added two lines to the drawing. "We would, however, have to make stirrups."

I wandered over to the weapons pile and picked up a hammer- neither of us used battle hammers, but it might work for hammering metal. Next I grabbed a battleaxe- neither of us could lift it easily enough to use it in a fight, but the metal at the top could be repurposed.

"Right," I said, dropping the weapons, "If you want stirrups too…" Halfrida nodded, "Then we'll make four, and we can switch our pairs between the straps as we need."

"Okay… and for the straps to keep our legs in…" Halfrida grabbed a leather cord and fiddled with it for a moment, before proclaiming, "A slipknot. It'll keep us secure, and we can undo it easily if we ever need to dismount in a hurry." She tugged on the cord experimentally. "But we're going to want it sturdier. I'll braid multiple cords together."

I nodded. "And while we're at it… if we want extra sturdy, we should make the saddles with multiple layers." I glanced at our pile of supplies. "I think we have enough leather… as long as your new saddle isn't too big…"

Halfrida put down the slipknot and stepped over to Starfire, running her hands over the dragon's neck and upper back before climbing on. "I was thinking a little bigger, maybe extending back further…" she tapped a spot on Starfire's back, before the line of bumps down her spine started. "And if I wanted to be speedier, I guess I would lean forward like this, and my feet would go in stirrups back here… so I would have part of the saddle come down here," she tapped under Starfire's wing joint, "And I would have the slipknot straps here," she traced an invisible line over her leg, then sat up in a normal position, "and here."

I sketched on the ground for her as she gestured, then waved her down. "Like this?"

She examined it. "Yeah pretty much like that," she rubbed out a line and changed it, "There."

I looked at her current saddle. "Are you going to keep your handle the same?"

"I think I'll have it thicker… and longer, further down the sides of her neck." She adjusted the drawing again.

"Looks good," I said as we stepped back and look at our sketches. "Should we get started?"

We grabbed a rope and used it to take different measurements of the dragons and ourselves, noting down the figures on different parts of the sketches. Then we took the leather, and decided to make our saddles three layers thick, sturdy, but not too bulky. We traced out the patterns and cut them out, and cut slits and holes for attaching the various straps between the layers.

"Now for the straps themselves…" I muttered. "We should double up layers of leather, and also add some straps so the saddles can't slide sideways."

We made the straps, and devised knots that would work best for each use. Then we aligned the pieces of leather and hammered holes in, to sew them together with cords. Finally, we placed the leather straps in, slid the bottoms through the slits in the leather, and threaded the cord through the holes, making the saddles two separate wholes.

I glanced outside, the sun would be setting soon. The days were getting shorter and shorter. "Let's make the stirrups before going to bed."

We argued for a few minutes how to do it, as we had no forge, and neither of us were blacksmiths anyway, but eventually decided on heating the metal, and hammering it on a rock.

We placed the top of the battleaxe on a stone in front of Starfire, who looked very confused. We explained what we wanted her to do, then backed away. The Day Fury shrugged her wings and released some of her green gas before stepping back and igniting it. After ducking away from the explosion of heat, we found the metal glowing red and the wooden handle of the axe burned away. Halfrida held the metal with some makeshift tongs while I hammered it out, the dragons watching in confusion and fascination. At one point, we had Starfire slice through the glowing metal with one of her claws, dividing it into strips, which I hammered out, then hammered into a basic stirrup shape.

"Um… Do you think we can join it again at the top?" I wondered, eyeing the shape. Halfrida held her hand out for the hammer, which I gave to her, and she proceeded to get the two metal parts tightly against each other, before holding it out in front of Starfire. Another burst of flame from the dragon, and with a little more hammering, and a quenching in the pool, we had a functional stirrup.

I wiped my forehead. "One down, three to go."

It was a while after dark when we were finally finished. I attached the stirrups to Iceflame's saddle, then put it on him. My sister did the same with her dragon, and we stood back to admire our handiwork.

"It looks like it fits," she said hopefully, as the dragons twisted, stretched, and sniffed at the objects now tied snugly to their backs and necks.

"We'll test them tomorrow," I decided, fatigued, and we went to clean up the rest of the mess.

 **A/N: Please review if you have any questions, comments, suggestions. This chapter was kinda short, so I might upload another later today… I'm trying to pace myself so there's not a sudden drop in chapters posted now that I'm studying for finals… bah… Thank you to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/followed so far, which isn't too many people, but I appreciate it nonetheless :)**


	11. Chapter 11- Halfrida

The next morning, I saddled up Starfire again, now with the new and improved saddle. I put the stirrups in the normal position, then got on and strapped in my legs with the braided cord in a slipknot.

I glanced over to Herryk, who was also ready, gripping Iceflame's horns.

"Let's go," I said, gently nudging Starfire with my knee. She stepped out of the cave and spread her wings- apparently not bothering with the more gentle takeoff from the cliff as she knew I was better strapped in.

She lifted her wings up high and crouched, before jumping up and flapping her wings downward in a powerful stroke, then flapping again as we rapidly ascended.

I yelped at the sudden quick movement, but held on tight as the wind rushed through the air as the dragon continued to climb. She soon evened out, gliding in circles as we waited for Iceflame and Herryk to catch up to us.

We flew similarly to how we had the last time, a couple days before, gently gliding and turning, admiring the view. Starfire went where I told her to, whether verbally or by gently leaning in the direction where I wanted to go. She probably figured she had no reason not to- she could fly her own way whenever she wanted. Iceflame seemed to be following the same logic.

Though she was obedient, and seemed happy to be in the air, I could tell she was itching to do more- to show me more.

"I'm going to switch positions," I called to Herryk, who nodded. I undid the knots on both of my legs, then re-tied them in the other cords. I then unknotted the stirrups, and re-tied them further back. I saw Herryk doing the same, but moving forward as well.

I gripped the sides of the leather strap at the front of the saddle. "Okay, show me what you can do."

Starfire roared in delight, flapping her wings and going up, up, up. I shrieked as we went faster than we had during our initial ascent, but I was soon laughing in glee at the speed, soaring through the clouds. Starfire suddenly leveled off, and hung for a moment, suspended in the air, before tucking in her wings and free-falling in a dive.

I let out a whoop as we sped towards the ground, faster and faster, my ears popping as the clouds zoomed past us. Moments before it seemed we were going to crash into the trees, Starfire extended her wings and swooped upward, gracefully going into a loop. I gripped the strap on the saddle and with my legs as we hung upside down for a moment before falling again.

I saw my brother and Iceflame doing similar tricks- diving, then leveling off and rolling over.

"Should we try that?" I asked Starfire, grinning. Her response was to wing her way upwards again, though not as high this time. I held on tight as we dove, and as the dragon tucked her wings and rolled, spinning over and over through the air. When she snapped her wings out again, I felt a little dizzy, but I was beaming, my heart light.

I leaned forward, and Starfire obeyed, heading towards the treetops. They rushed at us, but she didn't hesitate. One came directly at us and I leaned to the right, dodging it, then to the left again. We wove through the treetops, left, right, over, and under, adding a spin to a turn every once in a while. We finally burst out of the trees over the ocean, and dove down the cliffs again. We flew only feet above the water, faintly seeing our reflection rushing beneath us. I leaned hard to the right, and Starfire tucked her wings and rolled. I let go with one of my hands and slapped the water as I hung upside down for an instant before righting again. I pulled back and we flew upwards again, and Starfire released a stream of sparks that danced in the air as we circled around them.

She then breathed out white mist, forming a cloud that swirled away from us as she hovered, flapping her wings, a queen of the sky on her throne.

Suddenly, Herryk and Iceflame burst through another cloud, pausing in front of us as the dragon melted the frost that had accumulated on his scales.

"What would happen if he breathed through a cloud?" I wondered. Starfire obligingly provided a cloud, and, jaws opened wide, Iceflame blew a gust of cold air. Beneath, a ball of icy slush fell to the ocean.

"Cool," Herryk said. "Try narrower, a thin concentrated jet… like when you broke our chains."

The dragon did so, and this time, a spike of ice shot from the other end of the cloud before losing momentum and falling to the sea.

Starfire released a cloud of gas and lit it with a shower of sparks, before turning and racing off. I held on, but didn't try to direct her, going along for the ride as she spun and dove, chasing Iceflame and vice versa.

We finally landed again, all exhausted, but happy. I had enjoyed my last flight, it was amazing being so high and seeing so much, but this second flight had been even better.

"We should do this more often," I said as we sat around the fire, roasting the fish we, or rather the dragons, had caught at the end of the flight. Herryk nodded in agreement, and the dragons continued to eat fish.

We were silent for a few more minutes before Herryk suddenly spoke. "We can fly on dragonback. Iceflame and Starfire are fast and powerful, they've taken on an entire ship of Vikings who set out to catch them and survived."

I sensed he was going somewhere with this, but I couldn't tell where. "Go on."

He stared thoughtfully into the flames for another moment before continuing. "We should rescue the Hooligans who are enslaved by the Barbarians… and the dragons."

"That's… this is sudden," I said carefully.

Herryk looked up. "I'm not saying now. But soon. After we go back to Berk, and check how things are going… if… everything's alright… then we should save them, especially if we can get some backup from Berk. The Barbarians don't know how to deal with people on dragonback, and if we need to, we can be stealthy about it… at least sneaking in," he amended, "I don't know if there's a stealthy way to smuggle a bunch of angry dragons out of… well, anything."

I nodded, still a little uncertain, but warming to the idea. There were other people captive, other dragons like Starfire and Iceflame. They didn't deserve to be there.

"Well," I said, taking a deep breath, "What would we have to do?"

"First… train. We know basic defense, but we need to be better. I've seen what the other Vikings your age do, we just have to do it ourselves, minus the dragon fighting part. It's mostly exercise and practice with weapons, and without weapons. And Iceflame and Starfire might need more practice using their talents offensively…" Iceflame rolled his eyes and Starfire snorted smoke. "Well, a little practice never hurt anyone, anyway. But we would also practice flying, mounting and dismounting quickly, basically everything that would be useful during a fight."

Was I really considering this? I had defended myself from dragons before, but that was it. I wasn't a fighter. Here my brother was proposing something crazy that couldn't be pulled off without fighting. But he was right, those people and dragons needed to be saved, and we were the only ones who could do it. And I certainly wasn't going to let my brother do it alone.

I nodded determinedly. "Alright. Let's do it."

 **A/N: Sorry, this one's kinda short… so I'm doing a double update :)**


	12. Chapter 12-Herryk

**A/N: This is a double update, so if you've reached this point and haven't read chapter 11… though I'm not sure how, exactly, but it's possible, I think… you should probably read that first :)**

The next morning, there was snow on the ground. I woke up to white everywhere- on top of Iceflame as well. He looked a little like a dragon-shaped snowman, but mostly blended in with the landscape. After looking over himself and stretching experimentally, he heated his skin and melted it off.

"Hey!" I protested as some of the slush dropped onto me. I brushed it off, frowning, then I got an idea, and a smile spread across my face. I grabbed a bucket we had pilfered from the ship and scooped some of the slushy melting snow into it. I then stepped quietly to the snoozing Starfire, and upended the bucket on her head.

I jumped out of the way as she leapt up and yelped in surprise. She turned and saw me, eyes narrowing, and stalked towards me. I tried to scramble away, but was quickly backed against the cliff.

Starfire opened her jaws and released a cloud of mist, thoroughly covering me with water vapor. She backed off a moment later with a huff of satisfaction.

I shivered suddenly as a cold wind hit me and my now slightly-damp-all-over clothing. I supposed I deserved it, but I couldn't help briefly playfully glaring at Starfire, who had curled up again by Halfrida.

Halfrida, however, was no longer covered by the dragon's wing. I scooped up another bucket of snow and tiptoed towards her. Unfortunately for me, Starfire was still awake. An eye snapped open and she swept her tail under my legs, causing me to fall as the slushy snow was spilled all over me and my sister.

Halfrida sat up, awake and spluttering, then her eyes fixed on me. She grabbed a handful of snow and charged, tossing it at me. I ducked and grabbed my own handful, throwing it back. She dodged and ran at me again, and I danced away as she snatched more snow. I dropped to my knees and gathered another handful. She threw it at me, I leaned to the side and threw my snow at her. She dropped and rolled, then sprang up again and tackled me into the snow. She held me down and clutched another handful over my face threateningly.

"Wait!" I yelped.

She paused. "What?"

"See? You can fight!"

Halfrida rolled her eyes, and stood up, deciding me being pushed into the snow was punishment enough for now. I got to my feet and brushed off the white powder.

"I didn't say I have terrible reflexes. I just don't fight."

"Well, you're going to have to." I reminded her. "To start our training, we are going to run around the edge of the valley ten times before breakfast!"

My sister raised an eyebrow but humored me. We jogged around the valley, hugging the cliffs, but not too closely on the open side, trudging through the half foot or so of snow, but after we had run around once, it got easier as the snow had already been cleared from our path.

The dragons watched us in confusion and amusement as we ran, then flew off halfway through, presumably to find food. When we finished, we were both breathing a little harder but not too badly.

The dragons had taken pity on us, and brought back food for us as well.

"Thanks," I said cheerfully as Iceflame dropped a rabbit in front of us, and Starfire dropped a bird. I grabbed the bird, pulling out one of its limp wings. "See these feathers? We can make a bunch of darts and arrows with these."

Halfrida groaned and put her head in her hands. "Please don't go all weapon-obsessed on me."

I shrugged and grinned apologetically. "It's different when you have to make your own."

We cleaned the animals and roasted the bird, smoking the rabbit for later. After we had eaten, I dragged Halfrida into the cave.

"Now," I proclaimed, "We choose our weapons." I laid out all we had taken from the ship- bows, swords, spears, axes, hammers, and various knives and daggers.

My sister stood back, eyeing the impressive layout uncertainly. "How do we know what to pick?" she wondered. It was a good question- most Vikings had one weapon they used for almost everything. When you chose a weapon you had to make it good- if you were heroic enough that bards would sing about you, they would sing about the battles you won with that weapon. Not that I expected to be sung about by bards. It was just something to keep in mind.

"Um… I guess try everything and see what you like best… Whatever fits your fighting style…"

"My fighting style is duck and run," Halfrida muttered, but she stepped forward anyway.

"I'm guessing it's not with a hammer, at least," I said shrugging.

My sister reached down and hefted the weapon, then snorted. "Definitely not… probably not an axe either." We had a single-bladed axe and a double-bladed axe, and we were both more likely to drop either of them in battle than hit someone.

"That leaves swords, bows, spears, and knives," I reasoned. "I think we should both have a couple of daggers as backup no matter what we choose, if we ever get captured or need to stab someone…"

Halfrida looked a little uneasy at the idea. I rolled my eyes and handed her a knife. "Here. Stick it in your boot." I did so as well, then handed her another. "And stick this… somewhere else."

My sister raised an eyebrow but, after some experimentation, tied it with a strap of leather to her pants under her skirt. I slipped mine through a loop on the inside of my vest.

"And we should each grab a bow," I mentioned. We both knew how to shoot, of course.

"We're going to need to have weapon straps added to the saddles at this point," Halfrida grumbled.

My eyes lit up. "Brilliant! We can do that later."

We each grabbed a bow, drawing back the strings to test them and find ones that hadn't been damaged by time or the elements on the ship.

Next, I grabbed a spear, tossing it from hand to hand and stabbing it at an imaginary foe, but I couldn't really see myself wielding it.

Halfrida picked up another spear, examining the hardwood shaft and the metal head, then stepping back and twirling it around, using it both for stabbing and like a staff.

"Nice," I complimented. "I think you should use it."

Halfrida nodded, running a hand up and down it. "I don't think I would like a sword much… this wood is strong, a sword wouldn't break it too easily… I might have to sharpen the tip a little." She held the weapon out to Starfire, who sniffed it before giving an approving hum. Halfrida climbed onto her back and experimented with her reach from dragonback, before just sitting, spear held in a ready position.

I wouldn't mention it to her, because she would probably disagree, but she looked as nearly as fierce a warrior as Astrid or Ruffnut with that spear astride the dragon, a determined look on her face.

I turned to the swords. There was a stunning variety of swords. Many were chipped or broken so I tossed those to the side for melting. I picked up the sword nearest to me. It was a good weight, just a little heavy. I would need to get used to it. I played around, stabbing, slicing the air. I swung at a nearby tree and it bounced off with a small dent. I examined the sword closer.

"Much too dull to use," I muttered to myself.

It took me awhile but I finally sorted out the dull swords. I picked up a nice sharp sword that did not have any dents. It was about three feet long with a steel blade. I swung with it a couple times. It was a little lighter than the first sword. The handle felt nice and smooth. I looked down at the handle to see what it was made of.

I looked down and almost dropped it. The handle was plated with red dragon scales, along with the sheath that matched the pattern.

"Hey Iceflame!" I called out. "Does it bother you that my new sword will be decorated with dragon scales?"

The dragon jerked his head up and narrowed his eyes as he sniffed the blade.

"It's awful, really, but it would be sad for this dragon's sacrifice to be wasted… At least this way I can put it to use freeing and avenging other dragons."

Iceflame growled in anger, but I could tell it wasn't directed at me.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," I said, buckling the sheath around my waist. "I'll call it Scaleblade. Now… We should practice."

Halfrida eyed her spear and my sword, frowning.

"We'll take turns using swords and spears," I clarified. "We can use different weapons later."

"Alright… What first then, battlemaster?"

"Spears and staffs," I decided. I grabbed another decent-looking one from the pile, then faced my sister. The dragons backed up a little.

"Go," I said, stepping forward. I jabbed my spear at her, and Halfrida quickly knocked it aside with the shaft of hers. I jabbed at her again, which she blocked, then swung the other side at her, which she blocked again.

"C'mon, swing back," I encouraged. Halfrida rolled her eyes but did so, and I blocked it.

We swung back and forth a couple more times before I landed a hit on her, with a quick tap of her legs.

I handed her a sword, which she swung cautiously. "You know I've never used one of these before… At least I've used spears and staves to defend sheep."

We started slicing and jabbing at each other, and, sure enough, I had my sword pointed at her chest after only a few strokes.

We kept practicing for most of the day, and improved a little, but I could tell this was something that we wouldn't master overnight.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading so far! Review if you have questions, comments, etc…**

 **Sooo, I've been writing this on a laptop that technically belongs to my school, and I have to turn it in tomorrow… We have an old desktop computer here, but it doesn't like me. If I must write from my phone, then I will, but it might take a while. I do have this nice ten-chapter cushion, so if I can, I'll have updates continue to be sorta frequent but irregular. Or at least that's how it feels to me.**

 **Also, I'm going on vacation for a few weeks. I think I'll have wifi, so I'll write during car rides or something as long as the scenery isn't too pretty and I don't get a headache.**

 **On a happier note, I will also post the first chapter of the Hiccup-centric time-travel story I mentioned a few chapters ago. This one does not have a nice ten-chapter cushion, because I want to get it out there with all the craziness about to start, so updates on that will also be fairly irregular but hopefully without gaps of more than a week or two.**


	13. Chapter 13- Halfrida

p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"strongspan style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"A/N: Greetings, all! This is my first post of the summer! Did I update just to see if I could with my phone? Yes, yes I did./span/strong/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;" /p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"The next day, after running and exercising, we decided to test the limits of Iceflame and Starfire./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""So you can set yourself on cold fire and breathe cold air… anything else?" Herryk wondered./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame growled then turned to a clump of grass and shot a green liquid out of his mouth. The grass dissolved, and the snow around it melted./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"My eyebrows shot up and Herryk said "Well, that's nice to know. Anything else?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame cocked his head, considering for a moment, before turning towards a pile of snow and digging through it for only a moment before pulling out a vole, which he tossed into the air and swallowed./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Um… Nice rodent catching skills?" Herryk said uncertainly./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame snorted, then turned to Starfire. Starfire started pawing through the snow, but it took her a few minutes before she caught anything. She then looked pointedly at Iceflame, who found another vole within five seconds./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""You can see things in the snow?" Herryk guessed. Iceflame made an uncertain noise, then Starfire released a cloud of mist, thick enough that I could barely see my hands in front of me./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Herryk yelped. "You found me… you can see through things?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame flapped his wings, sending the mist swirling away, then looked pointedly at Herryk, me, Starfire, and… the fire?/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Heat," Herryk realized the same time I did. "You see heat."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame made a pleased noise, bobbing his head up and down in an imitation of a nod./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Cool. That could come in handy… Let's test your speed, strength, and range."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"I raised my eyebrows, impressed. Things like that would never have occurred to me. Though he was only twelve, Herryk seemed to be shaping up to be a natural leader, or a natural battle strategist, or something./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Speed first," my brother continued. "How about… You know, I'm not really sure how to test that."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Have the dragons do it one at a time," I suggested. "Ride on the back of one, see how long it takes the other to fly to, say, the mountain and back. They can work on becoming faster, and we'll see how their speed improves."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Herryk nodded. "Good idea… Iceflame, you go first."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"I got up onto Starfire's back and Herryk sat behind me. The dragon took off into the air, though more gently than the previous time as she did not have a saddle on. Iceflame followed a moment later./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Alright, to the mountain and back, fast as you can, but don't tire yourself out too badly," Herryk instructed. "Ready… Go. One zippleback… two zippleback… three zippleback…"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Three hundred and twelve zipplebacks later, or five minutes and twelve seconds, Iceflame returned./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Very nice… Your turn, Starfire… just a sec…" my brother muttered. I leaned forward, directing my dragon to the ground again, and the two of us hopped off and onto the Daymare's neck before taking to the air again./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Ready… Go. One zippleback… two zippleback… three zippleback…"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire sped through the sky, almost becoming invisible as her speed and color made her into a blur. She returned a grand total of one hundred seventy three zipplebacks later./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Wow…" I breathed as she returned and circled around us. Would I ever be a good enough flyer to join her when she reached such a speed?/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Very nice, again, but can you do better?" Herryk wondered. "See, we used to be attacked by a Night Fury. He blended with the sky, and our only indication he was coming was this roaring, almost whining sound, before his targets exploded in a blast of blue fire."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire hovered for a moment, looking at my brother, before turning around and flying upwards. Once she was almost impossibly high, she hung, suspended from the air for a moment, before falling, pulling her wings close to her but not tucking them all the way, like a hunting falcon in a controlled but deadly dive. After a few seconds, we heard the noise- a roaring, almost whining noise that made any Hooligan who heard it scream 'Night Fury- Get down!'/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Suddenly, blue fire shot through the air, and a tree burst into flames as a rush of wind suddenly passed us with a swooping sound. A few seconds later, Starfire was circling us triumphantly. I beamed and my heart swelled as I looked with pride at my friend./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Herryk had a crazed grin on his face. "Yes! Yes! You'll send those Barbarians running!"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame grumbled, and Herryk patted his neck. "Hey, you're amazing too. Don't worry, I wouldn't forget you."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"We landed on the ground again, and I walked over to the Day Fury, taking her head in my hands and stroking it. "You're amazing, you know that?" I murmured, and she gently licked my face. "One day… one day, I'm going to ride you when you go that fast. If we train hard enough, I know we can." Starfire purred, her golden eyes wide./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" "Alright… next is strength. Can either of you lift… that boulder there?" Herryk wondered. It was about as large as an adult Viking, made of smooth grey stone. Iceflame took flight, then hovered over the rock, gripping it with his back talons and flapping. After a second or so of straining, he lifted the boulder and circled around the valley before placing it down again./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Starfire?" Herryk wondered. She flew over to him. The female dragon hovered over the stone for a moment, same as her friend, before grasping it in both her front and back legs. After flapping powerfully for a few seconds, a little longer than Iceflame, she lifted off, and circled around the valley./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Okay, how about… that fallen log?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame flapped over and, after a bit more struggling, lifted it and flew around the valley with it. I couldn't help but smile- the fairly small Daymare flying a giant log in a circle looked pretty funny./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire tried to lift the log, her wings straining as she flapped, but for all her efforts she was unable to lift the log. She landed again, panting lightly and looking frustrated./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Don't worry," I said softly as I rubbed her head. "Daymares are just naturally bigger and stronger. But if we train, you'll be able to lift heavier loads soon." Starfire rumbled deep in her throat and leaned against me, causing me to stumble. "But you're still much stronger than I am," I said laughing./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Okay, Iceflame, try that boulder over there." Herryk continued once we were paying attention again./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"The spiny dragon was, however, unable to lift the large stone./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Alright, we'll work on this later," Herryk said, still cheerful. "Now, let's see how far you can shoot your various breath weapons… We're going to need a bigger area, preferably one that we're okay with destroying a little."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire nudged me toward her back and I got on, gripping with my legs, and she gently took off, followed by Iceflame and my brother. We glided quickly to the middle of a long clearing a ways away./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Herryk hopped off his dragon and walked to one end of the clearing before walking carefully back, counting his paces./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Okay, twenty paces. Let's see what you can do from here."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame stretched out his neck and let out a burst of acid, which just barely reached the edge of a tree and singed some of its branches and leaves off./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Okay, I'm guessing you can't do that much farther," Herryk muttered to himself before tearing a strip of bark off a nearby tree and jotting down a note on it with our pencil, as we were sadly lacking in paper of any kind. "Try the ice breath now."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"We all stepped back a little as the blue dragon stretched his head forward again and opened his jaws wide. A frigid, icy blast shot out of his mouth, rushing forward and almost looking like fire as the water in the air around it turned to ice, eventually hitting a tree at the end of the clearing with a supercooled mixture of ice, water, and air. Frost covered the abused tree, creeping up its branches, some spreading to the trees nearby./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Awesome," Herryk declared./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"I nodded then yelped as the Daymare's tail brushed against my leg. Iceflame whipped it away and gave an apologetic croon, nudging me until I gave him a forgiving scratch around his horns./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""What happened?" Herryk wondered. "I didn't think his tail was very sharp…"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""No, it was hot. Not enough to burn me, but still hot," I said, checking my leg./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Realization dawned on my brother's face. "He takes all the cold from the rest of his body to get his breath that cool,"{ok, chemistry class hasn't been invented yet, so they don't know he's relocating the heat, not the cold} he said. "Probably with some help from… this." Herryk scratched some pale blue gel from the dragon's jaw. "Like the flammable Nightmare gel, only cold. But how would you activate it? Sparks wouldn't do it, do you get it cold?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Iceflame gave an affirmative rumble./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Cool. Okay, back up another twenty paces… here," Herryk said. The dragon did so, and again, his icy breath froze the target tree easily./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Another twenty paces?" Herryk wondered. Iceflame tried, but the icy jet of air fell short, dissipating and creating a line of thicker snow on the ground./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Ten paces forward," the Viking suggested. Iceflame did so, and was able to just make the target./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Okay, fifty paces…" Herryk muttered as he noted down the number on his piece of bark. "Do you have a shot limit?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"The dragon tilted his head from side to side in an uncertain way./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Probably not for the ice breath," I realized, "because there's nothing he's burning as fuel or anything, just coldness and the gel, which is plentiful enough to coat his whole body. The acid, though…"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Herryk turned back to Iceflame. "So, do you have a limited amount of acid you can spray?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"The dragon bobbed his head in a nod./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""But it probably depends on how much you spray each time, so no real shot limit," Herryk finished. "Well, I guess if you know your own limits, that's all that matters… Starfire, do you have limits on your mist, gas, and sparks?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire breathed out some cloud, then tilted her head, uncertain, before eating some snow./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Er…" I thought for a moment before snapping my fingers. "I think I got it. Clouds are made of water, but the water has to come from somewhere, so you have to drink water or eat snow, I guess, to breathe out the clouds."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"The Day Fury bobbed her head happily./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""But where does she keep it?" Herryk wondered. "Sea dragons that spray water, like scauldrons, have big bellies to store it… I think… I don't really remember."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"I shrugged. "Maybe clouds use less water than actual water… What about your other abilities?" I said, turning to Starfire again./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire let out a small shot of flame./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Well, it would make sense for that to be limited, it is for all other dragons," I mused. "So how is your range?"/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire turned to the frozen, acid-eaten tree at the end of the clearing, and fired a small shot, snapping off and burning one of its branches./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Well, that was fifty paces," Herryk said. "Try… a hundred… here," he called, now from a ways away. The Day Fury flew over, looking a little uncertain as she landed, and sure enough, the blast of blue fire didn't quite make it, fizzling out in the air, the remains falling to the snow where they were quickly extinguished./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Seventy-five paces, then," Herryk said, stepping forward. This time, Starfire's blast hit the tree, finally putting it out of its misery./span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""Okay…" Herryk jotted down a note on his piece of bark. "I haven't actually seen a Night Fury super clearly when it fires, but I'm pretty sure I've seen one do it from twice that distance, maybe a little less."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';""I'm sure she can improve if she practices," I said, laying my hand on the dragon's neck as she flew back over. "Besides, she can change the color of her skin and breathe clouds, which no Night Fury can do. Maybe this balances it out a bit."/span/p  
p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 36pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; line-height: 2;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"Starfire hummed as she nudged me onto her back, and we flew back to the dried-lake valley./span/p 


End file.
